Lady Mustangs Edge East Hamilton Despite Loss Of Points

East Hamilton Boys Play Strong In 69-61 Triumph

  • Friday, February 12, 2016
  • Larry Fleming
Walker Valley coach Paul Cretton, left, East Hamilton coach Tony Williams (green pullover) and two game officials check the home scorebook Friday night. Walker Valley lost two points after a long discussion, but still managed to win 39-37, the same game score before points were taken off the scoreboard.
Walker Valley coach Paul Cretton, left, East Hamilton coach Tony Williams (green pullover) and two game officials check the home scorebook Friday night. Walker Valley lost two points after a long discussion, but still managed to win 39-37, the same game score before points were taken off the scoreboard.
photo by M.A. Locke

Walker Valley lost two points and a late lead in a scorebook controversy in the final seconds of Friday’s prep high school basketball game at East Hamilton.

Then, the Lady Mustangs simply scored them again.

And won.

Gabria Hubbard’s layup that gave Walker Valley a 39-37 lead with 43.8 seconds left was wiped off when the home scorebook didn’t jive with the visiting book, which was correct.  Instead of a two-point lead, the Lady Mustangs were tied at 37-all.

Seconds later, East Hamilton’s Destyne Black missed a layup and Walker Valley’s Lauren Lay was fouled. Lay connected on both free throws and the Lady Mustangs walked off with a hard-earned District 5-3A victory and the score wound up exactly the same as it was earlier, 39-37.

“I’m just glad it ended the way it did,” Walker Valley coach Paul Cretton said. “I’m thankful we came out on top. I thought the refs and book-keepers were arguing about whether we were up by four points or two points.”

No, coach. They were dickering over disallowing two points.

East Hamilton coach Tony Williams, the district’s 2015-16 coach of the year, was gracious the scoring hullabaloo.

“I’ve personally never seen anything like that,” he said. “Our book said one thing (37 points) and their book said something else (39 points). The refs had to go with the home book. I don’t think there was any ill-intent on anybody’s part. Our scorekeeper is a super cool guy. I think the Lord upstairs made it come out right. The right thing happened.”

East Hamilton’s boys later gained momentum for the postseason tournament with a 69-61 win over the Mustangs behind the career-high 31-point effort by Justin Dozier. Vandrele Wilson scored 10 points.

The Lady Hurricanes (22-7, 9-3), the No. 2 seed for next week’s district tournament at McMinn County in Athens, led most of the game and had a 26-12 advantage midway through the third quarter.

With East Hamilton unraveling in the final eight minutes of play, the Lady Mustangs (11-16, 6-6) started closing the point differential as Lay heated up. She scored nine of the team’s first 11 points in the period and pulled the Lady Mustangs to within 33-28.

East Hamilton eighth-grader Madison Hayes hit two free throws, Hubbard scored on a put-back and Hayes  added another free throw, but the Lady Hurricanes trailed by 36-30 with 2:48 remaining.

Hubbard made a free throw and Kat Alomar, the only Walker Valley player on the All-District team picked by coaches on Wednesday, drove for a layup.

In keeping up with the score, Alomar’s basket cut East Hamilton’s lead to 36-34.

Maleiah Moon hit one free throw for the Lady Hurricanes. The score is 37-34 with 1:29 left.

Lay drains a 3 from the left corner at the 1:22 mark, tying the game at 37-all.

After one of East Hamilton’s 15 turnovers in the final quarter, Hubbard drove the lane for the go-ahead layup and a 39-37 Walker Valley advantage at the 43.8-second mark.

Then, everything came to a halt.

Scorekeepers were talking back and forth.

The Walker Valley scorekeeper and the East Hamilton clock operator got in a shouting match.

A woman wearing an East Hamilton T-shirt got between the two ladies yelling at each other.

Referees were looking at both books and conferring with each scorekeeper.

After several minutes, they went with the home book and Walker Valley lost two points.

“We put it all on display there,” Williams said. “We, and me included, did everything we could possibly do wrong to lose a game. I hoped we could run out the clock and still be able to win at the end.”

Well, in the end Walker Valley got the victory when Lay calmly sank the two free throws that restored the lost points.

Walker Valley 39, East Hamilton 37. And that score stuck the second time.

“They deserved to win,” said Williams, who didn’t have Kyndall Caudle available due to a concussion – her second of the season – that occurred in a shoot-around prior to the game. She was struck in the face by a thrown ball.

Williams isn’t sure how long Caudle will be sidelined.

“It could be up to two weeks,” he said. “That’s the worst possible thing that could have happened to us right now.”

Caudle, Hayes and Black were all named to the all-district team.

In addition to the 14 turnovers in the final period, Williams said his Lady ‘Canes missed four layups, went 6-of-12 from the free-throw line and grabbed only six offensive rebounds.

They also managed to score just nine points while Walker Valley went off for 21. Lay put up 12 of them.

“Sometimes you shoot lights out,” Cretton said. “Sometimes you don’t. We just kept battling.”

East Hamilton boys 69, Walker Valley 61: Dozier was on fire. The hot-shooting guard scored 19 first-half points and hit five of his six 3-pointers in the first two quarters as the Hurricanes (19-10, 4-7) built a 36-28 halftime lead.

With the game tied at 18-18, Dozier had nine of the team’s next 11 points – all on 3s – and the Hurricanes went up 29-22.

Dozier opened the third quarter with a 3 from the right wing and his layup with 32.6 seconds on the clock pushed the lead to 52-40.

“Coach (Rodney English) talked to me the other day and before tonight’s game about being aggressive,” Dozier said. “I had been too relaxed in practice and during some of our games this season. I came out and attacked tonight.”

Said English, whose team will be the No. 4 seed in the tournament, “I asked him to be more aggressive and he did a great job doing that tonight. He didn’t just score 31 points; he defended (Walker Valley’s) Josh Jones all night long. It was a heck of a performance.”

Jones is one of four all-district picks for the third-seeded Mustangs (17-9, 7-4). The others are Kenny Bunton, Bryce Nunnelly and Kolten Gibson.

Bunton, who formerly played for the Hurricanes, scored 15 of his team-high 20 points in the first half. Jones finished with 19 points and surpassed the 1,000-point mark. Twelve of his points came in the fourth period.

“We came out so flat,” Mustangs coach Bob Williams said. “I hope this game will be an eye-opener for us. We played some great basketball since Christmas. It’s just that East Hamilton played great tonight and wanted it more than we did.

“We didn’t match their intensity the whole game. But I told them to learn from this. These guys are competitive kids and I think they’ll bounce back.”

East Hamilton’s Vandrele Wilson scored six of his 10 points in the fourth quarter.

“I’m so happy with the week we’ve had,” said English, whose club beat Signal Mountain on Wednesday and close the regular season with a home game against Sequoyah on Saturday. “We’re starting to get back to how we were playing before Christmas. It’s a perfect time to be doing that.”

Boxscores

Boys

Walker Valley                                   14 14 13 20 – 61

East Hamilton                                  14 22 16 17 – 69

Walker Valley (61) – Gibson 9, Sakkas, Melton 4, Eslinger 4, Nunnelly 5, Josh Jones 19, Kenny Bunton 20.

East Hamilton (69) – Vandrele Wilson 10, Panadero, Williams 4, Hughley 7, Ball 4, Fager 7, Justin Dozier 31, Roshelle 2, Wingard 2, Clark.

3-Point Goals – Walker Valley 1 (Gibson 1), East Hamilton 8 (Dozier 6, Wilson 1, Fager 1).

Girls

Walker Valley                                   5 5 7 21 – 39

East Hamilton                                  8 10 10 9 – 37

Walker Valley (39) – Lauren Lay 14, Davis 2, Waller, Whit 3, Anderm, Spann 4, Clark, C. Lay, Jones 4, Alomar 6, Hubbard 6.

East Hamilton (37) – Moon 8, Lacy 3, Scott, Madison Hayes 10, Gray, Zeh 2, Destyne Black 14.

3-Point Goals – Walker Valley 3 (L. Lay 3), East Hamilton  none.

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)

Kenny Bunton of Walker Valley is sandwiched between East Hamilton defenders DaVae Hughley (4) and Sergio Panadero during their game Friday night. East Hamilton won 69-61.
Kenny Bunton of Walker Valley is sandwiched between East Hamilton defenders DaVae Hughley (4) and Sergio Panadero during their game Friday night. East Hamilton won 69-61.
photo by M.A. Locke
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