Greenbrier East boys basketball head coach Jared Patton knew one thing for a fact when his team visited longtime rival Beckley Saturday night.
When Flying Eagles big man Jaylon Walton scores 20 points, Beckley wins.
While the mission to slow Walton (four points) was successful, it did leave the Spartans vulnerable in other places.
Beckley simply turned to its other weapons of destruction.
With Coby Dillon handing out assists like Halloween candy, teammates Zyon Hawthorne, Preston Clary and A.J. Thomas feasted on the opportunity in front of them.
Combining for 52 points on the night, the trio led the Flying Eagles past Greenbrier East 66-52, running their record to 7-1.
Beckley built an 18-11 lead after one quarter, but the Spartans quickly responded to tie the game and briefly took the lead at 23-21 midway through the quarter.
However, on a night where the City of Champions celebrated the exploits of the championship teams of the 1990s, the Flying Eagles took a page from those teams to close the half with an 11-0 spurt over the last three minutes.
“We kind of needed that burst right there. That is called finishing the quarter the right way. I thought we did that. They were up on us and it could have went their way. I am glad it went our way, finishing the quarter right,” Beckley head coach Ron Kidd said. “I thought we played better defense there and we put pressure on the ball. I think we could have done that a little bit better. We didn’t have that same intensity like we did (Thursday) night over at Shady (Spring). Give East credit. They were ready to play and they were well coached. They are going to be hard to beat.”
The final minutes of the early quarters created some tough holes for the Spartans.
“We didn’t close any of the quarters very well. We called timeout, wanted to work the ball and take the last shot. We take a quick one both times and they score,” Patton said. “Probably eight points off of that over the first (two) quarters. We just have to do a better ending the quarters. We told them what to do, we just didn’t execute.”
The next Beckley spurt came with the Flying Eagles holding a 38-32 third quarter advantage. Over the next four minutes, the home team erupted on a 14-3 run to push the lead to 17 points.
“When we went down that many, we weren’t getting any defensive stops. Whatever they wanted right there, they were getting,” Patton lamented. “We called timeout and said take it one possession at a time. We play this game called stop-score-stop and that was what we were playing until we got back into it. The kids really responded.”
Greenbrier East ended the quarter with seven straight points and rode the momentum into the final quarter. Back-to-back 3’s from Nate Dixon capped a 15-2 run, moving the Spartans within four of the lead.
Beckley took a crucial timeout to regroup.
“We just talked about getting on the shooter. They were trying to drive us and kick it to the corner,” Kidd said. “We just told them to get tougher on defense and when they missed, we get the rebound. They have kids that can shoot the basketball. If you don’t guard them, they are going to hit shots. That is why they were able to come back. We didn’t guard them like we should have.”
The two teams traded buckets out of the timeout, but the home team applied the final dagger holding East scoreless over the final four minutes of the game.
“We cut it to four and I thought we had a chance, but we just couldn’t get over the hump right there,” Patton said. “We battled, fought back and did what we needed to do. We just didn’t hit a couple of shots and missed a couple of rotations. We didn’t get the right shots.”
“We were still running our offense decently, but we took some contested shots,” Patton went on to say. “We dribbled a little too much and it got us out of sync. It took us out of the rotations in our offense. I liked what we were running to get us back where we needed to be, but we did go away from it just a little bit. It hurt us in the end.”
Hawthorne led all scorers with 24, while Clary scored 17 and Thomas had 11 big points and some key defensive plays. Dillon ended with 12 assists.
Dixon was the only double-digit scorer for East with 13 points.
“A.J. did some good stuff out there. He hit two big 3’s when they made a run at us. He is tough enough to stand in there and take a charge,” Kidd said. “Big charges when we needed it. It seemed like it change the momentum of the game every time he took a charge.”
GE: 11 12 19 10 – 52
B: 18 14 20 14 – 66
Greenbrier East
Don Penn 7, Brody Hamric 8, Darius Burns 4, Nate Dixon 13, Reed McGraw 6, Sam Hawver 8, Layne Lambert 4, Braylen Godfrey 2. Totals: 19 9-12 52.
Beckley
Zyon Hawthorne 24, Coby Dillon 8, Preston Clary 17, A.J. Thomas 11, Jaylon Walton 4. J.W. Wynes 2. Totals: 24 12-14 66.
