Prep boys basketball state tournament: Wyoming East survives thriller with Logan

“When you play a team three times, and the last time we played them was 15 days ago, there’s really no secrets in the bag. That was a game where two really good basketball teams just went into a rock fight. It literally went down to no time on the clock, so a lot of kudos go out to [Logan] coach [Mark] Hatcher and his squad. We knew what type of game that would be, and our young pups with a couple old heads figured out how to pull it out.”

Wyoming East’s season sweep of Logan was not performed easily, as the game was tied seven times with seven lead changes.

Logan led for 20:57 in the contest compared to 6:45 for Wyoming East.

Matt Hatfield’s jumper with five seconds left in the first put the Wildcats ahead 12-9 after one.

A layup from McCormick Ilderton at the 2:48 of the second gave Logan a 21-15 advantage, which would prove to be the biggest margin of the game. The Warriors responded with six points from Braxton Morgan and Muscari to cut the Wildcats' lead to 24-21 at intermission.

The teams failed to separate in the third quarter, as the score was tied at 30-30 midway through before a layup from Fox at the 1:32 mark served as the last points of the stanza and provided the Warriors with a 35-34 lead heading into the fourth quarter, in which four of the game’s seven lead changes occurred.

It took the teams 1:27 to find the net in the final quarter, with a jumper from Logan’s Zayden Sherod providing a 36-35 lead.

Morgan responded on the other end of the court almost immediately with a jumper of his own, as Wyoming East went back ahead 37-36 at the 6:17 mark.

Eleven seconds later, the Wildcats were back ahead after Hatfield knocked down a jumper to provide a 38-37 advantage.

Neither team scored for the next 1:49 until Hatfield split a trip to the free throw line to put the Wildcats ahead by two.

The Warriors responded with five straight points as jumpers from Zach Hunt and Broc Johnson provided a 42-39 advantage with 1:18 remaining.

Logan’s Ilderton then tied the game again at 42 with 47 seconds to go.

Fox, a 6-foot-8 sophomore forward, nailed a short jumper with 38 seconds left that proved to be the game-winner.

In a wild final sequence that involved multiple chances for Logan to score while trailing by two points, standout forward Ivan Miller was fouled at the buzzer.

Miller took to the line for two shots with no time showing on the game clock, but he failed to convert the first shot and the game was declared final in favor of the Warriors.

“Early in the game we were trying to find ourself offensively and I’m not sure we ever found ourselves offensively tonight," McBride said. "A lot of that was due to Logan. Zach Hunt made some timely 3s, one in the first half and then when Talan [Muscari] got downhill and hit him in the corner. I’m pretty sure that gave us the lead.

"It means a lot when it's your senior. It means a lot to these guys when their senior makes a play like that, and as coaches we’ve told him that if he doesn’t shoot when he’s open, we will take him out. Kudos to him, but he’s been putting time in the gym too.”

Fox, who finished with just four points, bluntly shared his thoughts on his game winning shot.

“It wasn't going well at all for me today. Like I told coach, I about crapped on myself when I shot that thing," he said. "I’m being for real. It was a good feeling though. I’m just glad that we won.”

The Wildcats' season concluded against an area opponent.

“That’s southern West Virginia basketball, coalfield basketball right there,” Hatcher said. “I’m glad that we got to display that in front of everybody, how it goes down every time that we play each other. With Logan County and Wyoming County, it’s about like that every time that we play. It has been that way for a long time down there, since the 50s and 60s with coach [Willie] Akers and Don Knuckles and those guys.

"We are very passionate about our basketball. I think you could see that tonight. I challenged my guys. We outrebounded them, we forced more turnovers, we had more steals than they did. We did everything that we set out to do tonight, except win the ball game.”

Hatcher made sure to voice his support and highlight Miller’s importance as a leader despite coming up short at the line.

“We dove, jumped, fouled and flipped every way that we could to try to get the basketball there at the end and score," Hatcher said. "[Miller] was one of the first ones to buy into me when I got the job. He was the first one that called me and he worked extremely hard in July, August, September and October. He broke his hand and worked through that.

"It’s disappointing that he missed the foul shot; there’s no person more disappointed than him. He thinks that he’s a leader of this team and he is. That will hurt him, but our kids love him and we will be there for him. We felt very confident that he was going to make those. He did not lose the game at all for us; we know that. He played outstanding. It was probably one of the best games he’s played against them all year long.”

Logan is optimistic about the future.

“We have a lot of freshmen and a lot of young players," Hatcher said. "Lucas [Lambert] has really grown. He grew by the help of our three seniors. We’re looking forward to the next few years and we hope to be back here every year."

Wyoming East won the two regular season matchups by scores of 59-51 and 65-63.

WYOMING EAST 9 12 14 9 - 44: Muscari 18, Hunt 10, Morgan 8, Johnson 4, Fox 4.

LOGAN 12 12 10 8 - 42: Hatfield 14, Miller 8, Ilderton 7, Lambert 6, Sherod 4, Williamson 3.