Third quarter run propels Paint Valley to 72-59 win at Peebles

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

Coming off a season-opening conference loss to Ripley, Coach Josh Arey and his Peebles Indians were back on their home court on Tuesday, December 7, this time in non-conference play, hosting the Paint Valley Bearcats. The Tuesday night match up was one of a physical and experienced Paint Valley squad facing off with the youth and varsity inexperience of this year’s Indians. In the end, the Indians didn’t have an answer for Paint Valley big man Dax Estep, who poured in 24 points, and too may defensive lapses at crucial points stalled any Peebles comeback attempts as the Tribe fell to 0-2 on the season, falling 72-59 to the visiting Bearcats.

The big difference in the game came in the third quarter when the Bearcats went on a 13-1 run that gave them a double digit lead, a lead they never relinquished.

“Our youth and inexperience is still kind of shining through,” said Coach Arey. “Paint Valley has a good basketball team and we knew that coming in.”

“Defensively we have to get a lot better, we’re doing a lot of little things wrong right now and we just have to get back in the gym and keep correcting things.”

The Cats got off to a good start on Tuesday night, scoring the game’s first five points before the Indians got on the board with a bucket in the paint from senior Alan McCoy, but a three-pointer from senior guard Cordell Grubb helped extend the Bearcat lead out to 11-4. One positive that Coach Arey took from Tuesday;s loss is that his team plays hard from start to finish and never quits and they showed that early as they scored five straight to cut the Paint Valley lead to just 11-9.

The Bearcats pushed the margin back out to 16-11 but a drive and score by Peebles’ Cory Reed brought the home team within three points as the opening quarter came to a conclusion.

The Bearcats began the second period with a 6-0 run, one of those buckets coming on a stick back by Estep, to stretch their lead to nine points, but then the Indians got hit, mainly with Reed beginning to “feel it” from long distance. The Peebles junior guard hit three shots from three-point land in a span of two minutes as the Indians went on a 13-4 run to pull within to tie the score at 26. But as seemed to be the case all evening, the Cats had an answer for every Peebles rally as consecutive buckets by Grubb and a later three-point play by Estep put Paint Valley back in front.

The combo of Estep and Grubb struck again with the final two baskets of the first half, giving the Bearcats a 37-29 lead at the intermission.

The Peebles offense struggled at times on Tuesday but the second half belonged to Indians’ junior Zane Porter, beginning when he nailed three-point shots on the first two Peebles possessions on his way to a 21-point second half outburst. Again, though the Bearcats had a response, another put back from the 6’5” Estep, and later old fashioned three-point plays from Grubb and Dillon McDonald helped Paint Valley string together a 13-1 run to quickly go back up by double digits, ballooning the lead to 18 points at 59-41.

The Indians have no quit in them, however, and they took the momentum back by scoring the final seven points of the third quarter, two-pointers from Porter and Zane Knechtly, and then a three at the buzzer by Porter that cut the Paint Valley lead to 59-48 as the final stanza began.

The final eight minute period began with the Bearcats getting a three-pointer from Trent Mettler as they pushed their advantage back out to 65-49, but the home team had more fight left and the Indians scored six straight, four of those from the red-hit Porter plus a pair of Mason Sims charity tosses to give their faithful hope once more, trailing 67-57 now with 3:10 left to play.

Unfortunately for the home side, they would only muster two points the rest of the way, a basket by Porter with 2:31 left. In that same span, the Bearcats added five to their total and with around a minute left, Coach Arey emptied his bench resigned to the fact that his team’s comeback was going to fall short as Paint Valley left town with a 13-point non-conference road win.

“I was happy with our effort tonight, our kids don’t quit,” said Coach Arey. “We played hard the whole time and when you have that you can build. We can teach everything else and I’m sure our best basketball is in front of us because when your kids are giving that much effort, good things are going to happen. We’ve got a long way to go and it’s been a rough start to the season but we’ll grow from it and get better.”

The Paint Valley combo of junior Dax Estep and senior Cordell Grubb were nearly unstoppable all night, the pair combining for 24 and 18 points respectively. The Bearcats (2-2) also placed two other players in double figures, Trent Mettler with 12 and Cole Miller with 10.

Peebles placed three in double figures, led by Zane Porter’s 23 points, with Cory Reed scoring 17 and Alan McCoy 11.

“Zane can shoot it and his early foul troubles tonight didn’t do us any favors,” said Arey. “We’re obviously better when we can keep guys on the floor that need to be on the floor.”

The path to win number one gets no easier for the Indians as they will be back in Southern Hills Athletic Conference play on Friday, December 10 with a tough road trip to Fayetteville and then face a tough non-conference trip on Saturday night when they travel to New Boston to face the Tigers, a Division IV Final Four team last season.

“Fayetteville is a really good team and that’s always a tough place to play,” said the Peebles head coach. “It doesn’t get any easier.”

Paint Valley

16 21 22 13 —72

Peebles

13 16 19 11 —59

Paint Valley (72): McDonald 1 6-7 8, Mettler 4 1-3 12, Grubb 7 2-3 18, Miller 4 2-3 10, Estep 11 2-3 24, Team 27 13-19 72.

Peebles (59): Sims 1 2-2 4, McCoy 5 1-2 11, Porter 7 5-6 23, Reed 6 2-4 17, Knechtly 2 0-0 4, Team 21 10-14 59.

Three-Point Goals:

Paint Valley (5)- Mettler 3, Grubb 2

Peebles (7)- Porter 4, Reed 3