Defensive play leads West past Valley, 39-35

5 days ago 2

Anytime a team plays another that is unbeaten, it takes a collective effort to claim a victory — because the unit that's in question is usually undefeated for a reason.

The West boys basketball program certainly has the ingredients to make a deep postseason tournament run as does the Valley boys basketball program, and on Friday evening, it was West who found a way to claim victory as the Senators took a 14-point third quarter lead before fending off a late rally by the Indians to move to 5-1 on the year with a 39-35 win at Portsmouth West High School in West Portsmouth.

For West head coach Caleb McClanahan, it's all a credit to how the Senators' mentality and approach has been regarding practices over the winter break.

"Coming off that big layoff, our kids have had some really good practices and stayed sharp," McClanahan said. "Mentally, you could tell that they were wanting to play and itching to play. You just never know until you get into a game and you start running up and down and getting into your legs how things are going to go. We tried to rotate and keep guys fresh early on in the game. I think that the layoff definitely affected our shooting, but our defense really came up big and we played really well tonight."

Once again, West senior Will Kegley proved to be the driving force offensively for the Senators with his play.

McClanahan's group ultimately took a 13-7 first quarter advantage and held a 24-15 lead at the halftime break, with Kegley thriving in all areas of the game as the senior scored eight first quarter points and had 15 by the end of the first half.

Kegley ultimately finished with a game-high 23 points, connecting on nine attempts from the field while going an efficient 5-of-7 from the free throw line.

While the senior's typical effort was huge, so too was West's defensive work. The Senators held a highly proficient Valley offense to seven field goals in the opening half, including one three-pointer. The Indians only had one conversion from beyond the arc through the opening three quarters of play as West ultimately built its 24-15 halftime advantage to as large as 31-17 through a 7-2 spurt to open the second half of competition.

"We were able to turn them over early, got a lot of deflections, a lot of steals, got out in transition early and was playing our game," McClanahan said. "Our defense was giving them fits. We were doing a good job of rebounding the basketball and getting out in transition. Valley then started doing a better job taking care of the ball, and they turned us over too later on."

A veteran group that has spent a great deal of time together across various sports, Valley didn't panic.

Riding another strong scoring spurt by Braxten Conaway, who scored all 11 of his points between the second and third quarters of action, along with a big effort off of the bench by Elliot Franke who scored five of his nine points in the fourth quarter, Valley went on a massive 16-2 run to tie the score at 33-apiece in the closing stages of the game.

"They've got multiple dudes that can really fill it up from beyond the arc, can drive, can get into the paint, can finish, can pass," McClanahan said of the Indians. "They're a very good offensive team. Credit to our guys for getting after them defensively, following the scouting report and keeping Valley from doing what they like to do early on and credit to Valley for not giving up and fighting back. We went really cold, and they turned us over quite a bit. We started making mistakes and they made us pay for it."

However, West's Braden Adkins stepped in to help seal the deal.

First, the junior canned a three-pointer — breaking the tie, easing the run and giving the Senators the lead back at a 36-33 margin to keep Valley from assuming command. Then, following his three, Adkins stepped in defensively to take a crucial charge, helping West get the basketball back with the lead late.

"Braden stepped up and hit a huge three for us — calmed our nerves a little bit," McClanahan said. "That was huge. Then, on the other end, he takes a charge that kind of tilted the game for us, too."

Kegley and Logan McIntire combined for the remaining five points in the quarter to help West hold off the Valley spurt and defend its house successfully in the process.

Along with Kegley's 23 points, five from McIntire and the three-ball by Adkins in the fourth quarter, Corbin Miller's four second quarter points and two points each by Braxton Kammer and Cristian Quirasco rounded out the West scoring cause.

Behind Conaway and Franke, Christian Copen added in six points for Valley while Jaxsyn Bender put up four, Jalen Dunham three and Blake Lundy two for the Indians.

West (5-1, 1-0 SOC III) travels to Minford (2-8, 0-1 SOC III) on Tuesday evening while Valley (6-1, 0-1 SOC III) plays host to Wheelersburg (4-0, 1-0 SOC III) on Tuesday evening as well.

"I'm sure that (Craig) Tackett, (Alex) Prater, Norm (Persin), all of those guys are telling their players, 'If you want to win this league, you've got to protect your home court," McClanahan said. "That's something that we've really stressed to the boys these last two weeks — to protect our home court and steal some games on the road. Hopefully, that starts Tuesday when we head to Minford. They're very good defensively, have great shooters and they're very athletic with a large frontline, so it's going to be a challenge for us."

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