By Mark Carpenter-
(Photos by Jordan Carpenter)
Two teams who have recently been heading in different directions faced off across the hardwood at West Union High School on Friday, Jan. 24 as the Dragons played host to the North Adams Green Devils in Southern Hills Athletic Conference action. The Devils came into Friday night’s contest with five wins in six outings, while the Dragons had been struggling, dropping five of six since the calendar turned to January.
The two teams had met earlier in the season, with North Adams taking a 57-38 win in the semi-finals of the 2019 Holiday Classic and all things considered, the visitors were solid favorites though West Union head coach Austin Kingsolver will gladly pass on that his team “isn’t afraid of anyone.” On Friday night, however, had a North Adams team on a roll come in and continue their winning ways, going wire-to-wire with the lead and winning their fourth in a row, 65-43 over the host Dragons.
“We’re starting to come around a little bit,” said North Adams head coach Nathan Copas in his postgame radio spot. “We’re getting scoring from guys who need to be scoring for us and defensively we’re keeping the scores where they need to stay at for us to win. When you see a lot of checks in the assist column and multiple guys in double figures, we’re playing well. I just hope this continues as we head into tournament play.”
“As a team, we have to understand that match ups are different every night and we have to have guys who accept that and play together. We’ve got guys who are consistently improving like Andrew Brand, who can score for us and guard the other team’s best player.”
In improving their mark in conference play to a solid 7-1, the Green Devils took early control of Friday night’s match up, getting the first two baskets of the game, one from Cade Meade on a put back and the other from Austin McCormick from close range. It was three minutes into the game before a Brycen Staten bucket got West Union on the board, but the Devils answered that with three-point goals from Jayden Hesler and Andrew Brand along with a deuce from Cameron Young to open up a 12-2 advantage.
The Dragons stopped that North Adams run with a pair of Cameron Campbell, but in the final two minutes of the first quarter the Devils got a Young three-pointer and a steal and layup by Brand and the first stanza ended with the visitors holding a 17-4 lead. Besides facing a double digit deficit, the Dragons also found their leading scorer, Zane Kingsolver, relegated to the bench after being saddled with two early personal fouls.
The lead extended to 15 when a Cade Meade bucket opened the second period before a Staten three-pointer snapped a near four-minute scoring drought for the home team. Unfortunately, Staten’s trey marked the beginning of another four minutes of the West Union offense coming up empty. In that span, the Devils got a coast to coast drive and score from Seth Meade, a layup in transition from Hesler, and a Seth Meade jumper from the elbow to take total control of the contest with a 25-7 lead.
With 2:11 left in the first half, the Dragons got a Phillip Jarvis free throw, followed up by Campbell taking a defensive rebound coast to coast for a score to finally get their first half point total into double figures, but baskets by Hesler and Seth Meade sent North Adams to the halftime break firmly in control, leading 29-10.
Though the Devils opened period number three with back to back baskets, the West Union five finally got things in gear and put together their best two-minute span of play for the entire night. On the strength of three-pointers from Kingsolver and Clayton Jones, the Dragons roared on a 14-3 run to wake up the silent fans on the home side of the gym and get closer than they had been since the first quarter, cutting the North Adams lead down to 36-24, but a battle-tested squad of Devils didn’t flinch, answering with an 11-2 run of their own to squash the comeback hopes of the home team. The North Adams run included three-pointers from Cameron Young and Seth Meade and ended with a “basket and one” from Hesler, West Union’s Braxton Blanton hit a baseline runner at the horn but the late North Adams run sent the visitors into the final eight minutes with a big 48-28 lead.
In their winning streak, the Devils had been playing without injured senior Cameron Young and with him back in the lineup, it just adds another scoring threat to Coach Copas’ troops. Young drilled a pair of three-pointers in the fourth period on Friday night as the Devils added to their already insurmountable lead. Late in the game, the Devils got their eighth three-point goal, this one from reserve Isaac Young and finished off the big “W” with a bucket by Seth Vogel for the final count of 65-43.
The Devils improved to 12-5 on the year with Friday night’s victory, and placed three players in double figures, led by Cameron Young’s 15 points, with Jayden Hesler adding 12 and Cade Meade 10. Seth Meade scored 9 and Austin McCormick 7 as North Adams made it six wins in their last seven tries.
“Cameron missed four games and sometimes we just can’t get him to shoot enough, but when he gets hot he can stretch the defense and on defense he just gets his hands on so many passes,” said Coach Copas. “We need him to play and shoot the ball like he did tonight.”
“Now it’s about us getting better each night and doing the little things right, tightening up some fundamental things.”
The Dragons fell to 6-9 overall and were paced by 13 points from Brycen Staten with Cameron Campbell scoring 10 and Zane Kingsolver 9.
Both teams found themselves right back in action on Saturday night and both teams came out with victories. The Devils, playing with heavy hearts after the passing of Coach Copas’ father, improved to 13-5 with a 60-42 road win at Lucasville Valley, led by McCormick’s 15 points and Cade Meade’s 15 rebounds,
The Dragons were back on their home court and snapped their three-game losing skid with a 75-59 win over the Southeastern Panthers. West Union was led by a trio of double figure scorers, Zane Kingsolver with 18, Cameron Campbell with 16, and Braxton Blanton with 11.
The Dragons were back in conference play on Tuesday, Jan. 28 when they hit the road to face the first place team in the big school division of the SHAC, the Eastern Warriors. On Friday, West Union will host Lynchburg, again a conference battle.
North Adams was home on Tuesday night for a Senior Night conference match up with Whiteoak and then on Friday night will be in a huge SHAC showdown at Eastern Brown, a team they trailed by one game in the big school standings at press time.
North Adams
17 12 19 17 —65
West Union
4 6 18 15 —43
N. Adams (65): Hesler 5 1-1 12, C. Young 5 1-4 15, Brand 3 0-0 7, Vogel 1 0-0 2, S. Meade 4 0-0 9, I. Young 1 0-0 3, C. Meade 5 0-0 10, McCormick 3 1-2 7, Team 27 3-7 65.
W. Union (43): Jones 2 1-2 6, Staten 5 2-2 13, D. Jarvis 0 2-2 2, P. Jarvis 0 1-2 1, Campbell 2 6-7 10, Kingsolver 4 0-0 9, Blanton 1 0-0 2, Team 14 12-15 43.
Three-Point Goals:
N. Adams (8)- Hesler 1, C. Young 4, S. Meade 1, Brand 1, I. Young 1
W. Union (3)- Jones 1, Staten 1, Kingsolver 1
