By Rich Stevens
The active, fast-moving, balanced, small-town Tug Valley boys basketball team ran past state tournament veteran Tucker County during the Class A quarterfinals at the Charleston Civic Center.
The Panthers, who won the 2013 championship in their first year as a Class A program, moved to the semifinals with a 67-55 victory over the Mountain Lions (19-5) on Thursday.
Tug Valley (20-3) ended a streak of 13 consecutive titles by private schools with its crown three years ago. On Thursday, it continued Tucker’s state tournament misery in the Mountain Lions’ 23rd visit to the final eight.
“I thought we were flat, which is kind of typical for us,” Tucker coach Dave Helmick said. “Our first quarters haven’t been great. I thought we did a good job of not making it too bad.”
The Mountain Lions, making their 23rd appearance overall and 15th straight, have reached the semifinals 11 times and were runners up twice without a state championship.
The Panthers next play at 11:15 a.m. Friday against the winner of the Wheeling Central-Parkersburg Catholic contest.
“I felt like we came out ready to play from the get go,” said Tug Valley coach Edwyn May, who is in his first season since taking over for Garland “Rabbit” Thompson, who accepted the Mingo Central head coach job. “I thought we got a little winded, tried to give some of them a break in the second quarter and felt like we got our second wind in the third quarter. “
Tug led 25-18 at the half, but scored 14 of the first 17 points of the third to take control of the state tournament’s first game in which both teams had double-digit assists – Tug had 15 and Tucker 11.
Jeremy Dillon had 21 points, 10 rebounds, five blocked shots, four steals and four assists for the Panthers.
“That’s basically what we do,” Helmick said. “We’ve averaged at least that 1ll year. We have three or four kids averaging 4-plus assists a game. We’d like to ask for a little more, if that’s possible. A few times we had our head down, not seeing the floor.”
A 3-pointer from Chandler Runyon gave Tug Valley a 36-24 lead with 6:02 left in the third and the Mountain Lions didn’t get any closer than 10 the rest of the way.
Tyler May had 17 points for the winners and Runyon added 10.
