BLOUNTVILLE – Looking up at a 13-point halftime deficit West Greene coach Allen Tolliver called on his senior big man, Ayden Lamons, to take over on Tuesday night in the District 1-2A Tournament third-place game.
Lamons rose to the occasion and powered home 12 points in the third quarter before the Buffaloes completed their comeback and collected a 60-58 win over Chuckey-Doak.
“I thought the first half was about as bad as we could have played. We turned it over left and right. In the locker room we had a pretty good heart to heart and they responded,” West Greene coach Allen Tolliver said. “I challenged (Lamons) at halftime. I told him I’ve been too easy on him, and that he is going to put his big butt on the block and go score. That’s what he did. We got back to the basics, and defensively the effort picked up. But now we have to continue to build.”
Both teams now move on to the Region 1-2A Tournament where they will be on the road on Saturday for the quarterfinals. Chuckey-Doak will visit District 2-2A champion Gatlinburg-Pittman and West Greene will visit Cumberland Gap. Gatlinburg-Pittman beat Cumberland Gap 79-36 on Tuesday.
“Now its win or go home,” Tolliver said. “We’ll watch some film and put together a game plan. We’ve seen Cumberland Gap once already and we know what they have. We know we have some stuff to work on, and we’ll work on them for the next three days.”
Chuckey-Doak went into the third quarter on Tuesday holding a 36-23 lead and that increased to 37-23 when Gavin Crum made a free throw.
Shortly after Lamons began to make his presence felt. He started with a layup from the right side and then scored on a pair of offensive rebounds to close the gap to 37-31.
With 1:27 left in the period Lamons sent a pass from the block to Tytus Shelton at the top of the key for a three-pointer that cut the Knights’ lead to 43-40.
With 16 second left Lamons put back another miss and the Buffaloes were within striking distance at 45-42 with eight minutes left to play.
On the first possession of the fourth quarter Crum knocked down a triple from the corner for the Black Knights.
At the midway point in the period Ryland Grindstaff landed a fade-away trey and Chuckey-Doak held a 56-50 advantage.
With 1:34 left West Greene still trailed by six points but Elijah Williams lofted up a floater to start the Buffs final run. After an empty Chuckey-Doak possession West Greene freshman Carter Stills came up clutch with a corner trey that closed the gap to 58-57.
With 40 seconds on the clock Williams poked the ball loose and Josiah Dawson took it the other way. Then with 21 seconds on the clock Lamons bounced a pass across the lane to Williams for the go-ahead layup.
It was the Buffaloes’ first lead in 22:02 of game time. In total West Greene led for 1:41 of Tuesday’s 32-minute contest.
The shot put West Greene in front 59-58 and they held on to secure the 60-58 win.
“I asked them at half time if they were ready to be done. These guys responded, they weren’t ready to quit and they showed that with how they played in the third and fourth quarters. They stepped up big time,” Tolliver said.
Tuesday began with the team’s trading shots and West Greene briefly went in front at 9-7 when Dawson landed a three-pointer.
Crum got ahead of the defense for a pair of transition layups to swing the advantage to Chuckey-Doak at 13-9.
West Greene got a pair of three-pointers from Shelton to even the score, but at the buzzer Mason Henderson put Chuckey-Doak in front 19-17.
West Greene again briefly regained the lead at 21-19 on a layup by Lamons, but then Chuckey-Doak’s Jake Broyles caught fire.
The masked man scored 10 straight points and put Chuckey-Doak on top 29-21.
Williams broke the streak with a layup for West Greene, but then Broyles landed a triple from the corner. In the closing minute Crum and Grindstaff each scored in transition and Chuckey-Doak went to the break with a 36-23 lead.
Lamons finished Tuesday with 20 points and Shelton put in 17 points for West Greene.
For Chuckey-Doak Grindstaff and Crum each scored 16 points and Broyles finished with 15 points.
