Shorthanded Big Reds fall to Shady Spring
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PARKERSBURG --The shorthanded Parkersburg Big Reds entered Saturday's contest versus Shady Spring down three of their top players, as Class AAA's No. 2 team cruised out of Memorial Fieldhouse with an 80-40 victory.
The loss saw PHS still without Bryson Singer, who is still in a walking boot and is expected to miss the next two to four games per head coach Bryan Crislip. Also out for the red and white were Austin Fleming and Quayvon Cyrus. Those two served a one-game suspension following an altercation with members of the St. Albans student section following a 54-51 Thursday night road win.
Still, PHS (5-5) had to get down to business in spite of the holes in the lineup. The visiting Tigers (8-1) had other ideas.
Grant Miller scored the opening basket, but the Big Reds' lead was short-lived. Shady Spring scored the next 14 points en route to 31-9 lead after one quarter. The SSHS press was too much for Parkersburg to handle, as turnovers led to that score. More of the same happened throughout the entire half. In the absence of inside pieces, PHS relied on the 3-ball and saw some success. On the day, the Big Reds hit more shots from outside (8) than they did from inside (7). Leading scorer David Parsons tallied nine points on a trio of threes that all came in the second half. As for the rest of the first half, the Tigers kept piling on. A 16-7 to close it out gave the visitors a 47-16 advantage with no signs of stopping.
Three Big Reds scored six, as Elijah Hernandez came off the bench in the second half to hit a pair of shots from beyond the arc. Nate Rodriguez did most of his scoring near the paint for his half-dozen, and Luke Fries hit two triples of his own. Shady had large contributions from its usual suspects, as Ammar Maxwell's 17 points led the way for head coach Ronnie Olson's squad behind three 3-pointers to help the cause. Braden Chapman followed right behind him with 15 points and a game-high four makes from long range.
Jaedan Holstein did damage from short range, as he cleaned up with seven makes from near the cylinder.
The loss snaps a three-game winning streak for PHS, as coach Crislip talked about players needing to step up in a pinch, especially with the suspensions imposed for this game.
"You always say it's always next man up," he said. "I always say you're trying to earn those varsity minutes. The difficult thing was that Shady Spring is as difficult as anyone we're going to see all year. Being down three of your top eight boys, you're going to end up losing battles. The big thing is getting good experience from it. We want to teach our kids (the intensity in the fourth quarter) is the intensity level I want us to have."
As far as the suspensions go, Crislip detailed how those came to be and what will happen in the future. The one-game suspensions mean Fleming and Cyrus will return when PHS travels on Tuesday night to take on Ripley.
"Seeing the result from (those players being out) is worth three games just because of how bad we got beat," Crislip remarked. "I guarantee those guys who were out today are going to take it harder, because they let their team down. It showed up on the court and in the score. They're out for this game. We'll have some other punishment behind the scenes at practices. Then, we'll move forward to Ripley. It was a collective collaboration of minds. I met with my administration. I met with my athletic director (Chris Way), and I met with my coaches. We jut had to come up with a game plan we all agreed upon, but it won't happen again. Things just escalated, but they are good kids. They're all remorseful for what happened, and they know there are consequences for their actions. The consequences are strict, but they are good kids, and we want the community to understand that."
Contact Josh Hughes at jhughes@newsandsentinel.com