Photos by Steph Redden
Charmco – James Monroe head coach Matt Sauvage knew his team was in for a battle when the No. 1 ranked Mavericks traveled to No. 10 Greenbrier West Tuesday.
For the better part of three quarters, the Cavaliers gave the Mavs all they wanted.
However, a 22-2 spurt to end the first half and start the second half was the difference in a 77-41 win for the visitors.
“I told the boys yesterday at practice that (Greenbrier) West at West is different than West any place else. That is a compliment to West and its fans,” James Monroe head coach Matt Sauvage said. “When you play them here, you are in for a battle. I know what the score was, but even through three quarters, it was a heck of a battle. It took a while to get them off our backs.”
Greenbrier West took the early lead on a pair of layups from Chase McClung and Michael Kanode to the delight of the raucous home crowd.
West maintained the lead for the first six minutes of the opening quarter only to see the Mavericks ran off eight straight and lead 15-10 after the first period.
The run reached 10 when Collin Fox scored on a drive to open the second period and the Mavs appeared to be pulling away.
However, a triple from Kadin Parker stopped the bleeding and inspired defensive play from the Cavaliers trimmed the lead back to one with 3:30 to play until halftime.
“People say you can’t press them, but I thought our press gave them some fits and our half-court trap gave them fits,” Greenbrier West head coach Jared Robertson said. “Defensively we did what we needed to do for a lot of the game to compete with them or beat them.”
With his team in a scoring funk, all-stater Eli Allen ignited another Mavs run to push the lead to double digits for the first time in the contest.
Allen first drilled a corner 3 before a drive through the lane ended in a bucket for Cameron Thomas. Another scoring drive from Allen made it an eight-point lead before Ty Nickell scored down low for West.
“Eli is a different animal. Teams that play him realize it after the game is over. When he gets on the court, he can do so much whether it is rebounding, shooting or just seeing the court. He is really developing his outside shot now, which makes him even more dangerous,” Sauvage said.
A stickback from Thomas was followed by a triple from senior sharp-shooter Shad Sauvage to beat the buzzer and give James Monroe a 32-21 lead at halftime.
“I am not sure really why that happened. We were still playing hard, but it was like all of a sudden, we missed three in a row and they made three in a row,” Robertson said. “They are a good team and they have kids that can score, but we have to handle runs. I called more timeouts tonight than I normally do trying to stop runs and keep us in it.”
The Mavericks started the second half as hot as they ended the first.
“Last year we were up 20 and it didn’t end up well. I told them we were only up 11, so we decided we needed to turn up the pressure a little bit,” Sauvage said. “As good as our offense looks sometimes, our defense is going to win games for us. I think our defensive pressure helped us finally pull away. Of course hitting shots helps.”
A steal from Allen led to two made free throws when he was fouled on the drive. Sauvage then followed with back-to-back 3-pointers for a 40-21 lead just two minutes into the third quarter.
Allen capped the 12-0 burst with two straight layups to make it a 23-point advantage.
“The start of the second half was just like when we played down there. They made shots and we didn’t. It kinda snowballs after that,” Robertson said.
The home team could get no closer than 17 points the rest of the way and James Monroe led 51-31 after three quarters.
“We have to execute better on offense. We missed so many shots. Every game we are struggling to score at the rim,” Robertson said. “Too many turnovers and we were out of control a few times. When we get a steal or a long rebound, we have to be smart enough to know when we can score and when we can’t.”
Allen led all scorers with 23, followed closely by Sauvage with 21, including five long balls. Thomas added 16, with 12 coming in the first half.
West did not have a double-figure scorer, but had four players score eight points on the night.
“When you hit maybe two or three 3-pointers, it hurts teams,” Sauvage said. “The boys know their roles and they support each other. They get mad when Shad doesn’t shoot and get mad when Eli doesn’t drive. Having that mindset has been great for us. It was a great team win tonight.”
JM: 15 17 19 26 – 77
GW: 10 11 10 10 – 41
James Monroe
Josh Burks 3, Shad Sauvage 21, Eli Allen 23, Haiden Huffman 2, Collin Fox 7, Cameron Thomas 16, Jakobey Meadows 3, Owen Jackson 2.
Greenbrier West
Brayden McClung 8, Chase McClung 8, Kadin Parker 8, Ty Nickell 2, Michael Kanode 5, Elijah Perkins 8.
3-pointers – 8 (Burks, Sauvage 5, Allen, Meadows); GW: 4 C. McClung 2, Parker 2).
