With a quartet of three-point goals, Manchester’s Malaki Bayless scored a season-high 12 points in the Greyhounds’ 58-41 win at West Union on February 7. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
Hayslip, Crabtree, Bayless lead the way for Manchester
Senior Trae Grooms led West Union with 16 points as the Dragons fell to Manchester 58-41. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
Manchester’s Leland Horner hauls down one of his 10 first half rebounds in the Hounds’ SHAC win at West Union last Friday night.(Photo by Mark Carpenter)
Manchester’s Braylon Rickett goes over teammate Ronnie Elam as they both vie to stop this shot attempt by West Union’s Tegan Knox. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
With the regular season in its final week, two teams looking to build momentum for the postseason matched up on Friday, February 7, Senior Night at West Union High School as the host Dragons entertained a county rival, the Manchester Greyhounds. The Hounds came in on a hot streak, winning six of their last seven contests to jump over the .500 mark for the season. The Dragons have themselves been playing much better basketball under first-year head coach Adam Barr and were looking to chalk up their sixth win of the 2024-25 campaign.
Teams are supposed to shoot he ball well on their home court but that didn’t turn out to be the case on Friday night for the Dragons. The home team shot just 33% from the field, including a dismal 3 for 18 from beyond the three-point arc. Two of West Union’s big guns, Gavin Jarvis and Tegan Knox, combined to go 4 for 30 from the field as the Dragons struggled to score all night. Meanwhile, the Greyhounds drained eight three-pointers and put a trio of players in double figures as they claimed the 58-41 road victory.
“I thought our kids stayed really focused tonight,” Manchester head coach Austin Kingsolver told C103 Radio after the win. “I thought that defensively we did a really, really nice job. West Union is solid with a lot of really nice athletes that can shoot it and they play extremely hard so this was very nice win for us.”
The Greyhounds took command early on Friday night, scoring the game’s first seven points, getting a pair of buckets from Parker Hayslip. The only West Union points of the opening frame came at the 3:40 mark, a basket from Tegan Knox, but a score by Elijah Crabtree gave Manchester a 9-2 lead after one.
Both teams cored on their first possessions of the second period and when Hayslip converted a West Union turnover into an easy score, the Hounds went up 13-4. A later three-pointer from Malaki Bayless, one of his four on the evening, gave the Greyhounds a 19-8 advantage and that was followed up by a Hayslip triple that extended the lead further. The Dragons rallied with a 5-2 spurt to cut the gap to 24-13, but a three-ball from Landen Doyle late in the quarter helped send the Hounds to the half with a double digit lead at 27-15.
Manchester’s Bayless opened the third quarter with his second three-pointer as the Greyhounds held their margin throughout the period. Trae Grooms kept West Union semi-close with five third quarter points but long distance calls from Crabtree and Hayslip kept the Dragons at bay. The third stanza ended with West Union’s Andrew Daley draining a long three but it was still a game firmly in Manchester control at 40-26.
It was Bayless with the long ball again, hitting two more from beyond the arc on two of the Hounds’ first three fourth quarter possessions, putting his team up 48-28. It was cruise control from then on for Manchester as Coach Kingsolver was able to empty his bench and Coach Barr was able to get the final Senior Night curtain call before the home crowd for his seniors- Gavin Jarvis, Darius Davis and Trae Grooms. The fourth quarter ended just as the third quarter had, with West Union’s Daley finding the bottom of the net from three-point land, making the final 58-41 in favor the the visiting Greyhounds.
As mentioned, the victorious Greyhounds had three players reach double figures in scoring, led by Elijah Crabtree and Parker Hayslip with 15 apiece. On the strength of four three-point goals, Malaki Bayless added his season-high of 12 points. Braylan Roberts had 9 points and 6 assists with Leland Horner pulling down 10 rebounds, all in the first half before suffering an ankle injury that caused him to miss most of the final two quarters.
West Union was led in scoring by Trae Grooms, who tallied 16 points in the loss.
The Greyhounds faced a quick turnaround as they were on the road Saturday night for a conference battle with rival Peebles, a game that turned out to be one of the best of the season. After Peebles turned a late Manchester turnover into a 53-52 lead, Braylan Roberts took the inbounds pass and went coast to coast for the layup with just two seconds to play that gave the Greyhounds the thrilling 54-53 triumph. Roberts had a memorable night, leading the Hounds with 19 points with Parker Hayslip adding 15 and Malaki Bayless hitting three more three-point shots. Paxton Ryan led the Indians with 14 points.
Manchester
9 18 13 18— 58
West Union
2 13 11 15— 41
Manchester (58): Hayslip 6 1-2 15, Doyle 1 0-0 3, Roberts 4 1-2 9, Rickett 1 0-0 2, Bayless 4 0-0 12, Horner 1 0-0 2, Crabtree 7 0-0 15, Team 24 2-4 58.
W. Union (41): Daley 2 0-0 6, Jarvis 3 0-0 6, Davis 2 0-0 4, Knox 1 0-0 2, Flaugher 2 0-0 5, Grooms 6 4-5 16, Mills 1 0-0 2, Team 17 4-8 41.
Three-Point Goals:
Manchester (8)- Bayless 4, Crabtree 1, Hayslip 2, Doyle 1
W. Union (3)- Daley 2, Flaugher 1
