Gardner – For another night Tigers stand atop Panthers in the food chain – barely.
After surviving a three-point victory against unranked Independence last week, Class AAA No. 1 and reigning state champion Shady Spring had to withstand another upset bid, escaping PikeView with a 52-49 victory Tuesday evening.
PikeView had a contested look at a 24-foot tying 3-point shot in the final three seconds but it rattled off the rim allowing the Tigers to move to 4-0 in the region.
For Shady it was an atypical performance all around.
The Tigers turned the ball over 16 times and allowed PikeView to connect on 53 percent of its field goal attempts (53 percent) but a shift in offensive strategy and performance made the difference.
“I felt like it was pretty simple – we woke up,” Shady spring head coach Ronnie Olson said. “I felt like they were sleepwalking and starting the game the way we did, I felt like we weren’t cutting crisp, we weren’t moving and we weren’t really putting pressure on them, and that was part of the game plan. They knew you can’t feel a sense of urgency when you’re down, you gotta start the game like that, so that’s still a part of our killer mentality that we’ve got to learn because you’ve gotta take teams out. We had a chance to take them out early and they never looked back after that and then we’re down 10. So I am proud. This is gonna help us if we make it to Charleston or we’re in a big regional game, when we’re in a one or two possession game, cause we sure as hell have played in multiple one or two possession games this season. Probably more than we’ve played in the last five years and going all the way to the state tournament.”
PikeView was never rattled by the defending state champs, executing early to build a cushion.
Elijah Hall broke the ice with a layup before Braedy Johnston answered for Shady on the other end with Jalon Bailey adding a free throw for Shady.
Hall nailed a 3 to reestablish the PikeView lead, one it retained for the remainder of the half.
After Jack Williams made a layup to cut PikeView’s lead to 7-5, the Panthers ripped off an 8-0 run, getting treys from Hall and Bryson Bailey. The lead balloned to 11 points after another Bailey 3 and stood at 18-9 after a quarter.
“We watched a ton of film on them,” PikeView head coach Les Farmer said. “We seen some things that that we knew we can try to counter and different things they were trying to do and stuff like that. Give them credit and I mean, they’re an experienced team. They’ve got a lot of guys that played in the state tournament last year. That experience showed in the fourth quarter and I got inexperienced guys. I’m starting two sophomores and a freshman sixth man and at the end of the game the freshman is on the floor, so give credit to our guys too. We didn’t back down from them. We knew the run was gonna come, and I told them, I said, ‘You can’t let that run get out of control. It’s gotta be a 4-0 run and we got a capitalize on the next bucket.'”
After shooting 31 percent (4 of 13) from the field, turning the ball over six times and allowing PikeView to shoot 70 percent (7 of 10) in the first quarter, Shady snapped into form.
Braedy Johnston’s six points helped fuel a quarter that saw the visitors outscore the Panthers 14-6, holding them to 30 percent shooting. The rally brought the Tigers to within a point (24-23) at the break but neither team pulled away in the second half. The largest lead held by either team in the final two quarters was five points, a mark PikeView rallied from to take a 40-39 advantage into the final frame.
The Tigers, though, had found a rhythm.
After shooting 0 of 8 from 3 in the first half, they shot 4 of 9 in the second, making an effort to drive and get to the free throw line. The strategy proved effective as the went 9 of 11 from the charity stripe in the final frame.
“They kind of played a little off – man and and I thought we drove him, but they were in help and when they helped, what’s gonna be open is the kick and we didn’t make the kick,” Olson said. “We were forcing a lot of things there. For every action, there’s a reaction, so, if a team is gonna zone, you gotta move the ball a little bit. If they’re gonna play pack line, they’re gonna play off in the paint like that, you gotta look to drive hard, kick and drive hard again and you’ll get an open shot. They had to come out and pressure more because they were down. We knew that no matter who we play, we feel like we have an advantage if teams gotta come out and guard us honestly beyond the 3-point line. So that’s what we did there and they took advantage of it. We talked about it in our timeout, let’s not shoot anymore 3s after about the four minute more, unless we’re we’re going to the lane because I felt like we could have went downhill and got layups downhill there at the end of the game.”
PikeView tied the game at 45 with just over four minutes to go but spent the final minutes chasing after a pair of Jack Williams free throws gave the visitors the lead for good.
“When I watched them on film and I’ve been preaching to these guys the past week, like, I thought this was gonna be a very tough match up for us cause they got big physical guards,” Olson said. “They did a good job kind of backing us down in the paint and they got a lot of layups there, but they also had great kicks when we had to come help. That’s what they do, they drive you hard cause they’re big guys, they get you on their shoulders and the help’s gotta accommodate. They kick to the corners and the wings and you’re efficient when you got a wide-open shot, so we weren’t able to guard the ball tonight but a lot of it had to do with their strengths so a good job to them.
“I thought we played good enough defense. They scored 49. If you have a team scoring 49 points over the years, you should blow people out. You hold people under 50, you might run the table in high school basketball, but here we are in dog fights because we’re not very efficient on the offensive end. We’re gonna continue to be in dog fights until we learn how to be more efficient on the offensive end.”
Hall led all scorers with 20 points while Jalon Bailey led Shady with 17, including 12 in the second half.
SS: 9 14 16 13 – 52
PV: 18 6 16 9 – 49
Shady Spring
Jack Williams 13, Khi Olson 4, Jalon Bailey 17, Braedy Johnston 13, Gabe Short 5
PikeView
Drew Damewood 2, Elijah Hall 20, Bryson Bailey 11, Nate Vestal 5, Ryan Robinette 7, Zayden Farmer 4
