Panthers, Warriors advance in PIT

59th District foes meet in semifinal round, Hawks win in opening roundBy Jerry Boggs

Sports Editor

A hot start boosted Pikeville past Muhlenberg South and into a semifinal matchup with 59th District foe East Ridge as play began Thursday in the Pikeville Invitational Tournament.

Pikeville jumped out to a 24-12 lead after one period and hung on to top the Suns 73-68. East Ridge improved to 6-1 on the season with a 47-40 win over Cawood. In other action in the tournament, Pike Central defeated Lawrence County 61-56 in overtime and Meade County routed Betsy Layne 64-40.

Pikeville’s strong start came courtesy the team’s most experienced players as Tim Honaker poured in 10 points in the first quarter while Deven Adams added eight and Matt Clevenger chipped in four.

Muhlenberg South cut into the lead in the second and third quarters, drawing to 55-52 at the end of the third frame, but Pikeville’s younger players stepped up down the stretch to keep the Suns from shining in the end.

Adams finished with a team-high 21 points, leading a balanced attack. Honaker and Gatlin Clark added 13 points apiece and Clevenger and Deven Burchett each had 10.

Muhlenberg South was able to limit Adams, Honaker and Clevenger to just five points in the fourth quarter, but Clark had a pair of baskets, Jordan Bell added a basket and Burchett scored eight of his 10 in the period to keep Pikeville ahead.

Muhlenberg South was led by Logan Diedrich’s 20 points. Aaron Johnson added 18 as the suns had 12 baskets from behind the 3-point arc, including six by Diedrich.

East Ridge 47, Cawood 40

Warriors coach Eric Ratliff credits an aggressive brand of “ugly” basketball with helping his East Ridge Warriors reverse their struggles from a year ago.

East Ridge, 8-18 last year, is off to a 6-1 start following Thursday’s win over Cawood.

“We're more mature this year, and one of the things we did this summer was to rededicate ourselves to playing better defensively,” Ratliff said. “We're not real good offensively, but we defend pretty decently, and that keeps us in the game until our offense catches up.

“We start four guards, and we can pressure the ball a little bit. We try to speed you up, and I guess you could call it playing ugly. We want to turn it into a scrum, for the lack of a better word, and that makes up for our lack of offensive firepower.”

The Trojans, who fell to 3-8, played their own brand of ugly basketball, but it wasn't by design as they shot 33 percent (14 of 42) from the field and struggled to get into an offense for much of the game.

“Our assist-to-turnover (ratio) was double, in the opposite direction,” Cawood coach Anthony Nolan said. “With the personnel we had out tonight, there's no way we can win doing that.”

The Trojans also had a hard time scoring inside as they employed perhaps the smallest starting lineup in school history, with no starters above 6 feet tall. Josh Caldwell, a 6-4 junior center, is sidelined with a knee injury, and 6-5 sophomore forward Brandon McCoun missed the game to attend a church camp.

“We've got kids who are capable of doing some things, but we don't have any dominant one-on-one players. We have to set each other up, and we didn't screen well tonight,” Nolan said. “I thought defensively we should have forced more turnovers and got easier transition baskets. We were a step late, and we allowed them to push us out on offense.”

East Ridge led by as many as 13 before the Trojans made a late run, reeling off six straight points by Mikey Hamlin, Adam Rhymer and T.J. Green and turning up their intensity on the defensive end with the game out of reach.

Senior center Mike Rowe scored 12 to lead a balanced East Ridge attack. Senior guards Dustin Webb and Andrew Belcher added 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Pike Central 61, Lawrence County 56 overtime

The Hawks hit five of six free throws in the overtime period to hold off Lawrence County in the first game of the day Thursday.

Lawrence tied the game at 52-52 on Chandler Thompson’s 3-pointer with 1.7 seconds left on the clock. The shot countered a strong fourth-quarter ally by Pike Central that turned a 41-37 deficit into a late lead.

Michael Boyd Thompson, who scored both Pike Central’s baskets in overtime, led all scorers with 21 points. Tyler Hamilton added 19 points, including nine in the fourth-quarter run and 16 after the half.

Corey Newsome led Lawrence County with 19 points.