BLACKSVILLE – Necessity might be the mother of invention but being tired has got to at least be the father or maybe that one weird uncle.
Playing in its second game in as many days, in a week where it will play four contests, the Clay-Battelle boys’ basketball team was looking a little tired Tuesday evening as it trailed 61-51 early in the fourth quarter.
That’s when head coach Josh Kisner dug into his bag of tricks with a full-court press that gave visiting Doddridge County fits and dug the Cee-Bees out of that deficit on their way to a 78-67 victory.
“I didn’t want to go to the press until we needed to,” Kisner said. “I was trying to save our legs. We have four games this week and we are trying to save our legs as much as possible. But these boys have a lot of heart and are competitors.”
The two teams traded scoring runs in the first half, but it was the Bulldogs (4-8) who used a 16-2 run that spanned the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third quarter to take the lead. They pushed their lead to the 10-point mark before Clay-Battelle started to make its run.
With junior Kohlton St. Clair leading the offensive outburst, the Cee-Bees began to chip away at the lead thanks to a 19-2 run of their own and that pressure defense. St. Clair finished with a game-high 21 points including 15 in the fourth quarter. In fact, St. Clair scored all 15 of his fourth-quarter points during that pivotal 19-2 run.
“I just know when he catches fire, he is on fire,” Kisner said. “At practice the other day he hit 23 in a row. He’s a heck of a shooter.”
St. Clair said he knew his team needed a spark during that pivotal stretch.
“We were down, and we needed to be back up,” he said. “We started to press them and put some pressure on them, and it worked.”
Doddrige County built its lead in the third quarter as it hit 10-of-16 shots from the field and did not commit a turnover. However, once the Cee-Bees turned on the pressure, the Bulldogs committed eight turnovers in the fourth and hit just two field goals.
“Only scoring eight points in the fourth quarter and them scoring (27) is a problem,” Doddridge County coach Paul Burnside said. “I think we let that press speed us up, then instead of playing our game — we got into a rush game.”
While St. Clair led the Cee-Bees with 21 points, he also added seven rebounds and three assists. Colby Barr added 20 for Clay-Battelle while Michael Payton scored 15 points, all in the first half on five 3-pointers, and freshman Preston Luzader added 13 points with 12 rebounds.
“Putting the ball in the hole makes everything easy,” Kisner said. “Starting the game out and Payton hit three after three and our big guys inside were just dominant tonight.”
The Cee-Bees continue their long week Wednesday night as they host Tyler Consolidated at 7:30 p.m.
By ERIC HERTER
Doddridge County (4-8)
Richards 3 0-0 9, Racey 3 0-0 7, Ezell 4 1-2 12, Stewart 2 5-6 9, Cross 1 0-2 2, Hileman 5 7-7 20, Dehaven 2 0-0 6. Totals: 21 12-17 67.
Clay Battelle (6-4)
Barr 8 4-4 20, St. Clair 7 2-3 21, Shriver 0 2-2 2, Payton 5 0-0 15, Arnett 0 1-2 1, Boczek 2 0-1 4, Luzader 6 1-4 13, Gadd 1 0-0 2. Totals: 29 10-22 78.
1 2 3 4 – F
DC 14 16 29 8 – 67
CB 18 18 15 27 – 78
3-Pointers – DC: Racey, Dehaven 2, Hileman 3, Ezell 3, Richards 3. CB: St. Clair 4, Payton 5.
Fouled Out – DC: Stewart.
JV Game – DC 47, CB 42
