East Hamilton Stuns White County 56-52 In 3-3A Tourney

Walker Valley Upsets Cleveland 58-51 In Other Semifinal

  • Tuesday, February 28, 2017
  • Larry Fleming

CLEVELAND, Tenn. – One way or another Tuesday night, East Hamilton point guard Justin Dozier got his hands on the ball in a tight Region 3-3A semifinal game against White County at Cleveland’s Raider Arena.

In the final 35.5 seconds of wild action, Dozier got a steal that led to him shooting – and missing – two free throws. Moments earlier a Dozier turnover gave the Warriors a scoring opportunity they wasted.

Nineteen seconds later, Dozier got another steal and Andrew Williams subsequently – and calmly – sank two free throws. At the other end, White County’s Saylor Williams missed two charity tosses with 7.2 second remaining.

Dozier got the critical rebound and the Hurricanes ran out the clock and posted a 56-52 upset victory over the District 6-3A champion Warriors, securing a spot in Thursday’s region championship game and – more importantly – a berth in Monday’s sectionals.

“I wish I could say I came up with a great scheme for this game, but I can’t,” East Hamilton coach Rodney English said. “This is all about these kids making plays.”

Especially, Dozier, a junior point guard who scored a game-high 21 points that included 10 in the fourth quarter when the lead was going back-and-forth with rapid frequency.

“In the last 30 seconds, as a leader I knew I had to have the ball in my hands,” Dozier said. “After that turnover, I was determined to make up for it. We prepared hard for White County and knew they are a good-shooting team, so we had to play good defense and we did for most of the game.”

Good enough to give the Hurricanes (23-10) a shot at the program’s first region title against Walker Valley (19-11) on Thursday at 7 p.m.

The Mustangs pulled the night’s first upset when they stunned District 5-3A champion Cleveland 58-51 before a good crowd on the Blue Raiders’ home court. Cleveland had won the three previous meetings – two during the season and a third in a district tournament semifinal showdown.

Walker Valley executed a solid game plan that frustrated Cleveland’s perimeter shooters with an effective zone defense, including Deontae Davis, the team’s most dangerous long-distance weapon. Davis failed to score until he hit a 3 with 68 seconds left in the game after having spent a lot of time as a spectator on the bench.

The Mustangs did a lot of offensive damage in the paint, shortened the game with deliberate play and pulled another shocker in the postseason.

“People call our coach (Bob Williams) ‘Big Game Bob,’ ” guard Kolton Gibson said. “He always comes up with great game plans and we try to execute them.”

East Hamilton 56, White County 52: It looked like the game would be determined at the free-throw line and that was a factor. If that happened, the Warriors would have been picked to win the game.

Warriors coach Eric Mitchell is always blessed with good shooters. Just ask Bradley Central. In a 67-54 region quarterfinal win over the Bears on Saturday, White County made 31-of-38 free throws.

However, the Hurricanes hung right with their talented foes. East Hamilton made 15-of-25 charity tosses in the game; White County (25-7) was 12-of-20.

In the fourth quarter, the ‘Canes went 8-for-14 and the Warriors 9-for-14. In the final 1:19, the ‘Canes hit 5-of-10 from the stripe and the Warriors 2-of-4.

“That game was lost in the last few seconds,” Mitchell said. “They did a really good job on us defensively and made shots hard to come by. Losing in the semis is hard and we’ve been here three straight years and our seniors lost 12 games in three years. This is East Hamilton’s first time here and ultimately their defense won the game.”

East Hamilton trailed 30-23 early in the third quarter and was still down 42-37 midway through the fourth. But Williams hit a bucket and Dozier drained a 3 from the left wing to deadlock the score. The Warriors’ Malik Murray made two free throws and on two chances Dozier dropped in 3-of-4 from the stripe to give East Hamilton a 45-44 lead, its first advantage since 4-3.

Williams scored on a layup for a 47-44 lead and the Warriors played catch-up over the final 2 minutes and 33 seconds. And inexplicably the Warriors were not dead-eye dandies at the free throw line down the stretch.

“That surprised me,” Dozier said.

As a result, East Hamilton continued its late-season surge – the ‘Canes have won nine of their last 13 games – and took the 8-year-old program to uncharted territory despite sub-par offensive performances by Noah Fager and Cameron Montgomery.

“People who have been watching us are witnessing the maturation of a basketball team right in front of their eyes,” English said. “This is great for our team and our program. Kids stepped up tonight. Like Justin with his defense and offense; like DaVae (Hughley) on the boards and Andrew inside. This is sweet, man.”

Hughley finished with 13 points and Williams added 11, all coming in the second half and eight in the fourth period.

Pierce Whited led the Warriors with 11 points and Cole Crosland scored 10.

“We’ve had a lot of tragedy in recent weeks, but this is a great group of kids and they’ve accomplished a lot at White County,” Mitchell said. They have a lot to be proud of.”

The tragedy Mitchell was referring to was the death of senior Cole Crosland’s father, Bill, who was also an assistant coach on Mitchell’s staff. He was found dead on Feb. 7 in a barn on property he owned and only hours following the Warriors’ 64-62 loss at Cumberland County.

The Warriors had won five straight games going into Tuesday’s semifinal.

Walker Valley 58, Cleveland 51: The Blue Raiders had beaten Walker Valley twice during the season and in a district tournament semifinal showdown at Soddy-Daisy.

On the ride back from a 73-57 win at Cookeville in the quarterfinals on Saturday, Williams’ two assistant coaches – Will Campbell and Dine Patterson – worked on a game plan for the Blue Raiders.

“It was a good plan and I agreed with them,” Williams said. “In the past, Davis has killed our momentum and we put Zach (Eslinger) on him and he did a great job.”

The Mustangs also decided to extensively use a 2-3 defense in hopes of not giving the Blue Raiders many open perimeter shots. It worked out perfectly.

“This is the one we wanted,” Eslinger said. “I could tell Cleveland was frustrated the way we were playing defense and that helped us a lot. This is our biggest win this season and we’re fired up about having a chance to win the region two years in a row. We want to win it and host a (sectional) game.

“I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Talk about balanced scoring. Gibson, Eslinger and Bryce Nunnelly all scored 13 points and that trio accounted for 11 of the Mustangs’ 16 fourth-quarter points.

“They beat us three times, but for us to take care of business in the region and get a win on their court is just amazing,” Nunnelly said.

Walker Valley had a 29-10 halftime lead and went into the fourth quarter with a fat 42-28 cushion.

When Gibson knocked down a 3 early in the final period the Mustangs had a 47-33 advantage, but didn’t score over the 2 ½ minutes. With Kregg Ware and Romeo Wykle hitting back-to-back 3s and Donte Ware scoring – he missed a free throw for a three-point play – the Blue Raiders moved to within 47-41.

Eslinger did convert a three-point play and Cleveland’s KK Curry made a straight-on 3 and the Mustangs’ lead was 50-44 with 2:31 left.

Walker Valley scored eight of the next 11 points with Nunnelly putting up five for a 58-47 advantage with 23.1 seconds on the clock. Cleveland’s only score in that stretch was Davis’ lone 3-pointer.

“It was awesome and had to be one of the best experiences I’ve been a part of,” Gibson said. “I can’t explain it, but we weren’t going to lose another game to Cleveland this year.”

Williams said he’s used the zone defense at various times this season, but it’s not the Mustangs’ favored weapon against most opponents.

“Cleveland is so athletic and so skilled and they do a great job finding open people with an up-tempo style of game, but that wasn’t the best thing for us in this game,” he said. “We decided to do something a little different, something the other team might not have seen.”

Dionte Ware led the Blue Raiders (25-4) with 19 points and Curry added 11.

It was a bitter end to a season that included district regular season and tournament titles.

“This is the toughest thing in the world for me and I can’t believe we won’t be practicing (Wednesday),” Curry said. “We didn’t expect the zone defense so we didn’t have the right game plan I guess. They just beat us.”

Blue Raiders coach Jason McCowan, the 2016-17 district coach of the year, said his team prepared “for a lot of things.”

“District coaches are smart enough to not do the same things over and over,” he said. “In the first half, we were running up and down the court and had a good pace. That stopped in the second half and Davis got frustrated with the zone defense and that was a great call by Walker Valley. We could never get in a comfort zone.

“This is one of our toughest losses by far. We had a successful season, earned the right to play for a region title at our facility and were set up for good things to happen. We’re not going to practice (Thursday) and that’s really tough.”

LINESCORES

Walker Valley                        17 9 16 16 – 58

Cleveland                              14 6 8 13 – 51

Walker Valley (58) – Munck 3, Westfield 2, Kolton Gibson 13, Melton 5, Duke, Zach Eslinger 13, Murphy 9, Bryce Nunnelly 13.

Cleveland (51) – Wykle 3, Bradford 2, KK Curry 11, Deonte Ware 19, Patterson, Davis 3, K. Ware 6

3-Point Goals – Walker Valley 5 (Murphy 3, Gibson 2), Cleveland 7 (K. Ware 2, Wykle 1, Bradford 1, Curry 1, D. Ware 1, Davis 1).

East Hamilton                       13 8 14 21 – 56

White County                        12 14 11 15 – 52

East Hamilton (56) – Wilson 3, Andrew Williams 11, Montgomery, DaVae Hughley 13, Randolph 6, Fager 2, Justin Dozier 21, , Wingard.

White County (52) – Carter 8, Cole Crosland 10, Swoape 3, Dalton 8, Copeland 2, Pierce Whited 11, Murray 8, Wilson 2

3-Point Goals – East Hamilton 4 (Dozier 3, Wilson 1), White County 4 (Carter 2, Whited 2).

(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)

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