Walker Valley's Zach Davis (3) heads for the basket in the Mustangs' 60-39 Class 4A quarterfinal loss to Oak Ridge Thursday night in the BlueCross Basketball Championships at MTSU.
photo by Bryan Cannon
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – This wasn’t the result that Walker Valley had in mind for their opening game at the BlueCross State Championships.
Facing the Oak Ridge Wildcats in the Class 4-A quarterfinal at the state basketball tournament here at MTSU’s Murphy Center Thursday night, the results were similar to the ones they experienced the first time they played in Oak Ridge on Feb 3. The only difference being the stakes being a big higher the second time around.
The Wildcats had prevailed by double digits the first time. Thursday’s final was similar as Oak Ridge improved to 30-3 with the 60-39 win as they claimed victory for the 21st straight game.
The Mustangs were certainly disappointed with this most recent game, but they have much to be proud of after finishing a great season at 30-5.
“I’m really proud of this entire team as we had depth this year and a bunch of them contributed. I thought we did a much better job defensively than the first time we played, but we just had a hard time scoring,” Campbell said in his post-game media interview.
“I was pleased with how we battled and it wasn’t like a team that had just lost by 21 points. Oak Ridge is really good as they’re so long and athletic, but we don’t hang our hat on wins and losses. We’re hopeful and excited about next year, but I don’t want to focus on that right now.
“There are a lot of good teams here this week and we surely feel like one of them. We just didn’t hit enough shots against a really good team,” the veteran coach added.
Oak Ridge is coached by Aaron Green, who had several really good years at Cleveland some 25 years ago before going to Tennessee to help Bruce Pearl with the Big Orange. He’s been at Oak Ridge for the past 15 years.
“I don’t think we played our best game tonight, but were able to make enough shots to win,” he began.
“I thought our defense was exceptional and I really liked how we were able to limit their longer shots. Our last four games have been real nail-biters, which helped us prepare for games like this one. But we just want to win and move on. We really don’t have much turnaround time as we play again tomorrow night.
“It’s really hard getting here, but we earned our way. We’ll take another win tonight. It feels good to be back at this tournament. We’re looking forward to tomorrow and know that it won’t be easy, no matter who we’re playing,” Green nodded.
Ashton Davis scored a bucket in the first minute to put the Mustangs up 2-0. He hit another layup about 90 seconds later for a 4-3 advantage before the Wildcats scored eight straight points for a 11-4 lead with 4:40 left in the opening stanza.
The difference was 14-8 when the first quarter ended. Oak Ridge got back-to-back 3s from Ray’Quan Watson and Charlie Taubenheim to start the second quarter and it never got much closer as the Wildcat lead was 27-16 at halftime.
Oak Ridge stretched the lead in the second half with Turner Clayton’s layup at the buzzer cutting the Wildcat lead to 45-29 with eight minutes remaining.
Dallin James hit the second of two free throws to provide the biggest lead of 22 points at 58-36 with 45.4 seconds left.
Watson scored 13 points to lead Oak Ridge while Garrett Giles was also in double figures with 11. Cooper Williams and Taubenheim were next with nine points apiece.
Turner was the only Walker Valley in double figures as he finished with a dozen. Davis was next with nine,
Oak Ridge also had a 33-25 advantage in rebounds as Zach Davis had five for the winners. Giles was tops for the Mustangs with eight while Taubenheim and Cooper both snagged six.
Oak Ridge finished the game by making 19 of 39 field goals for 48.7 percent, including eight of 20 from long range for 40 percent. They also made 14 of 16 free throws for 87.5 percent.
Walker Valley made just 14 of 49 shots from the field for a cool 28.6 percent, including just three of 19 from long range for 15.8 percent. Free throws weren’t much better as they made just eight of 13 for 61.5 percent.
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WALKER VALLEY
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8
|
8
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13
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10
|
-- 39
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OAK RIDGE
|
14
|
13
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18
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15
|
--60
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WALKER VALLEY (39) – T. Campbell, A. Davis 9, Turner Clayton 12, Shirk 3, G. Campbell 2, Bain, Z. Davis 2, Keeton, Wood, Garrison 3, Green 3, Ayers, Coates, Sausville 5.
OAK RIDGE (60) – Greene 4, Garrett Giles 11, Ray’Quan Watson 13, Taubenheim 9, Williams 9, James, Jemerson 4, Howard 5, Amos 2, Hernandez, James 3.
3-POINT GOALS: Walker Valley 3 of 19 (Turner, Garrison, Sausville); Oak Ridge 8 of 20 (Giles, Watson 3, Taubenheim 3, Howard).
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)