15th Region All “A” Classic

Shelby Valley, Pikeville advance to semifinals

BY Randy White

Staff Writer

BETSY LAYNE — Pikeville was ready and so was Shelby Valley.

The Panthers opened the 15th Region All “A” Classic with a 61-50 win over Phelps, while Shelby Valley rolled to a 64-37 win over tournament host Betsy Layne.

Pikeville and Shelby Valley will square off at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the semifinals of the 15th Region All “A” Classic. It will be the second straight Friday night meeting between the two 59th District rivals.

“I don’t know if we stayed focused or not. It seemed like we came out focused, but anytime you have a game between two Shelby Valley games it makes it hard to stay focused,” Pikeville Coach Bart Williams said.

“The biggest thing is that we didn’t want anybody to chalk up our meeting with Pikeville in the semifinals and then Paintsville in the finals,” Shelby Valley coach Jason Booher said. “We needed to make sure we took care of business tonight. I think we showed a lot of maturity. Come Friday night it’ll be a packed house and it should be a great atmosphere and great game.”

Both Pikeville and Shelby Valley opened their games on fire. Pikeville jumped out to an 11-2 lead, while Shelby Valley ended the first quarter with a dominating 20-2 lead.

Deven Adams had a big game for the Panthers. The junior center finished the game with 19 points and 18 rebounds in the win. Tim Honaker also had a big game for Pikeville as he finished with 14 points.

“When Deven (Adams) wants to dominate a game he can,” Williams said. “On a night like tonight he dominated the game. He’s got to want that against big guys as well.”

Devin Burchett hit a big three for Pikeville with 4:33 left in the first half to give Pikeville a 28-12 lead. Patrick Keene scored with 3:01 left to push the lead to 30-12.

“We got off to a good start,” Pikeville coach Bart Williams said. “They’re a good team and they’ll make you play their style. It’s a tournament and we played good enough to advance to the next round. It wasn’t pretty, but we picked up an 11 point win and we’ll take it.”

Phelps finished the half off strong with a 10-3 run to cut the lead to 33-22 at the break. Austin Campbell scored on a breakaway layup with 25 seconds left and Aaron Salyer scored with three seconds left to help the Hornets finish the half off strong.

“We’re not good enough to overlook anybody,” Williams said. “We kind of let up there at the end. We’ve got to realize that we can’t do that because teams around here are good enough to come back and beat you.”

Honaker put the game away in the fourth for Pikeville. He scored six straight points to give the Panthers a 54-36 lead with 4:00 left in the game.

Charlie Hunt hit a couple of late threes to cut into Pikeville’s lead. Hunt led the Hornets with a team-high 16 points. Patrick Dotson added eight and Dillon Stiltner and Ryan Hager each had seven.

In the second game, Shelby Valley came out on fire. Jonah Justice scored six early points and Elisha Justice hit a three and Shelby Valley jumped out 9-0.

Then the Wildcats decided to start sharing the basketball. Elisha Justice found Ashley Hatfield on an alley-oop with 2:57 left to push the lead to 13-0. Logan Bryant came up with a steal and made a nice behind the back pass to Elisha Justice who made the layup and was fouled; the free throw pushed the lead to 16-0.

“We talked about getting out of the gates early,” Booher said. “Tonight we were ready to play.”

Then it was Jacob Bryant’s turn to get in on the passing game. Jacob Bryant pump-faked a pass to Curby Tackett, then reached back and fired a bullet to Tackett for a layup with 1:34 left. Jacob Bryant then threw a one handed pass from the top of the key to a slashing Tyler Newsome for an easy layup.

“I think we have to credit our defense tonight for holding them to two points in the first quarter,” Booher said. “We take a lot of pride and try to carry on a strong tradition of good defense here at Shelby Valley and tonight all of our kids did an excellent job.”

Shelby Valley had four players reach double figures scoring on the night. Elisha Justice led the way with 18 points and five assists. Jonah Justice added 13 points. Jacob Bryant added 11 points and five assists, while Newsome also reached double figures with 10 points. Hatfield finished the game with eight points and three assists.

The Wildcats had 20 assists on the night.

“These guys have done a good job of passing the ball all season. To do that you have to have an unselfish team plus good passers,” Booher said. “They did a great job tonight. Sometimes they try to get a little too fancy and just finding the open man. We always talk about keeping it simple and tonight we did that and made the extra pass.”

Shelby Valley and Pikeville will meet for the second time at 6:30 p.m. tonight in the 15th Region All “A” Classic semifinals.

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PIKEVILLE 18 15 12 16 — 61

PHELPS 6 16 7 21 — 50

Pikeville — Deven Adams 19, Tim Honaker 14, Devin Burchett 7, Tyler Baker 7, Matt Clevenger 6, Gatlin Clark 3, Patrick Keene 2, Blake Branham 2, Jordan Bell 1.

Phelps — Charlie Hunt 16, Patrick Dotson 8, Dillon Stiltner 7, Ryan Hager 7, Brennan Smith 6, Austin Campbell 4, Aaron Salyer 2.

BETSY LAYNE 2 11 15 9 — 37

SHELBY VALLEY 20 17 16 11 — 64

Betsy Layne — Samuel Keathley 9, Nathan Martin 7, Richie Tackett 3, Colt Stumbo 3, Bryce Adkins 2, James Lafferty 2, Jared Newman 2, Brennan Case 2, Josh Head 2, Bryant Tibbs 2, Adam Slone 1.

Shelby Valley — Elisha Justice 18, Jonah Justice 13, Jacob Bryant 11, Tyler Newsome 10, Ashley Hatfield 8, Curby Tackett 2, Cody Varney 2.