Thursday, March 2,  2006

sports-page 2-online edition

FREE Classified Ads
in the
Mountain Market!
(regular and online editions)
(must qualify)

Wise, VA/
Pikeville, KY

(click for forecast)

by Lloyd Combs
Sports Reporter
         It wasn’t a pretty sight in the first half, but it was a picture-perfect scene at the end for Twin Valley.
        The Panthers earned the first Region D title in school history with a 49-38 win over rival Twin Springs in Saturday’s finals at Clinchco Elementary School.
        Twin Valley, which clinched a state tournament berth with Friday’s semifinal win over Castlewood, earned the right to host Radford in the Group A quarterfinals
Saturday at Clinchco.
        Twin Springs will play Region C champion Glenvar Saturday at Northside High School in Roanoke.
        Despite a 9-0 start, Twin Valley had, perhaps, its worst half of the season in a low-scoring, turnover-plagued first half.
         The Panthers scored just seven points the final 11 minutes, had five unforced turnovers and held an uncomfortable, 16-13, advantage at halftime.
      Several key three-pointers, and a defense designed to deny scoring opportunities for Twin Springs standouts Mark Dockery and Pance Kecev, turned things around for the Panthers in the second half.
         Logan Shortridge hit a three, Kent Goodman added a pair of threes and the 24-2 Panthers came to life in the third period. Shortridge and Kent Goodman combined for all 25 of their points in the second-half. The duo led a 13-2 run capped by Goodman’s 25-foot trey just before the third-period buzzer. It staked the Panthers to a 38-23 lead.
        “We just had to come out and play better defensively and play better on offense in the second half,” Shortridge said. “Who hit the shots wasn’t important. We just got good movement on offense and hit our shots.”
         Matthew Baldwin added 11 points and 11 rebounds, Jeremiah Lester grabbed 11 boards and K. T. Vandyke dished out six assists for Twin Valley (24-2), which won its 23rd straight game.
         Good help defense was a key for the Panthers. Twin Valley held Dockery without a field goal until the 4:42 mark of the third quarter. The 6-foot-4 junior finished with 11 points. Kecev scored five.
         “We had to pick up the tempo and the kids really came out and stepped it up in the third quarter,” Twin Valley Coach Brian Moore said. “K.T. did a really good
job on Kecev and Logan helped contain Dockery.

For more of the story, see the print edition of the Mountaineer, on sale at newsstands now.  For more information on how to subscribe to the Mountaineer, call 276-935-2123 today.

Grundy's Regional Hopes Fall to Host Bassett, 61-48
Wave Halted in Region IV Semis

by Lloyd Combs
Sports Reporter
         Its longest trip all season marked the end of the road for Grundy.
        Bassett pulled away at the end to stop the Golden Wave, 61-48, in the Region IV semifinals Thursday night at Bassett High School.
        The Bengals closed the game with a 16-7 run to eliminate the road-weary Wave, which was playing its sixth game away from home in 10 days and seventh in two weeks.
         A pair of free throws by Aaron Church got Grundy (17-10) within 45-41 with five minutes remaining.
         Bassett then went on a 6-0 run, capped by a Chris Draper layup, to build a 51-41 lead with under four minutes remaining
         Theo Justus scored 18 points and Bobby Peck added 13 points for Grundy, which trailed just 30-28 at halftime.
         With 6-foot-4 junior Jimmy Ashby in foul trouble and 6-3 senior Stephan Baker out for the year after knee surgery, Bassett (16-8) out-rebounded the Golden Wave 53-23.
         “They controlled the boards,” Grundy Coach Greg Rife said. “We had trouble containing them after Jimmy went out. We’d get one shot and then they’d go down and shoot three or four times.
          “They didn’t out-execute us. We used a 2-3 zone because of their size and we adjusted to their shooters enough to stay in the game.”
         Led by Elijah McCall, Bassett hurt Grundy most on the offensive glass, where it claimed 30 offensive boards.
          “Elijah (McCall) all year long has been battling on the boards, and you know it was hard to get the ball inside against that 2-3 zone,” Bassett head Coach Tom Hering said. “He knew that his way of contributing was when we shot the ball to work hard to get the put-back.
         Grundy held Bassett scoreless for nearly the first four minutes of the first quarter. Both teams traded baskets in the first quarter, with neither club leading by more than four points. After the first eight minutes of play, the score was all knotted up at 14-14.
           Bassett opened the second stanza on a 9-2 run to take a 23-16 lead. Senior guard Brandon Johnson had seven of his team’s nine points during that stretch.
          Grundy tied the game at 28-28 on an Aaron Church jumper with under a minute remaining before halftime.
 

For more of the story, see the print edition of the Mountaineer, on sale at newsstands now.  For more information on how to subscribe to the Mountaineer, call 276-935-2123 today.

          If a 200-mile bus trip had any effect on Magna Vista, it did not last very long.
          Magna Vista dominated the final three quarters and defeated Grundy, 66-38, in the Region IV semifinals last Wednesday night at Riverview Elementary-Middle School.
         Ashley Norton scored 10 straight points in a decisive 15-0 run that staked the Lady Warriors to a 26-14 lead midway through the second period.
         Latisha Belcher and Magna Vista’s active zone defense did the rest, though Hayes-Scott was anything but pleased with her defense in the early going.
         “When we switched defenses and put (Belcher) outside, with her long arms, the length of her kind of bothers people,” Magna Vista coach Vicky Hayes-Scott
said.
          Norton was 10-of-16 from the field, including a 5-of-8 effort from three-point range, and finished with a game-high 25 points. The 6-foot-1 Belcher scored 15 of her 24 points in the second half, including nine in the third period as the Warriors extended a 33-20 halftime advantage to 52-26.
          “All season long, we’ve known people were going to sag on the inside,” said Hayes-Scott, a Castlewood native. “It’s important for our guards to step up and hit shots and they’ve done that all year long.”
           Magna Vista (17-3) outscored Grundy (19-4) 41-12 in the middle two periods, when it forced 10 turnovers and held the Lady Wave to 3-of-20 shooting from the field. Belcher had seven steals in addition to 11 rebounds.
           Senior Ashley Cook and freshman Kaitlyn Riley each scored 12 points for Grundy. It had trouble finding open shots and open passing lanes against the Warriors’ combination of 1-3-1 or 1-2-2 zone defenses, especially with Belcher at the point.
          “Belcher disrupted our offense all game, basically,” Grundy coach Bill Christian said. “We found a few shots at the beginning, but after that we couldn’t attack and make a quick pass and go from there. It seemed like she was all over the floor.
           “We made good decisions a lot of times, but they were just quicker than we were. After they got a big lead. We just couldn’t recover. They’re too talented.”
 

For more of the story, see the print edition of the Mountaineer, on sale at newsstands now.  For more information on how to subscribe to the Mountaineer, call 276-935-2123 today.

     Subscribe to the Mountaineer today and don't miss out on all the Buchanan County news!
    Call 276-935-2123 for information or write to: P.O. Box 2040, Grundy, Va., 24614-2040 to get your subscription started. Pricing information may be found on the Advertising page of this site.