Ritchie County Ends Magnolia’s 2021 Campaign
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NEW MARTINSVILLE -- For sports around the world, the 2020-21 season has been always up in the air in terms of if games can be played. While the Magnolia boys basketball team was able to take the court Tuesday night against Ritchie County, it only dressed eight players.
Unfortunately for the Blue Eagles, they were the victim of COVID and went into a West Virginia Class AA Section One, Region One matchup short-handed.
Up by 10 at halftime, Ritchie County scored the first eight points of the second half and never looked back en route to a 70-41 victory over the Blue Eagles at Magnolia High School.
The Blue Eagles' season is finished while the Rebels will travel to St. Marys on Friday for the sectional championship.
"We were happy that we had the opportunity to play because we didn't know," Magnolia coach Dave Tallman said. "These kids didn't practice for a week and we only had eight kids. We coached as hard as we can and they played as hard as we could. Then we were just a victim of COVID like a lot of people have been."
With the help of Trevor Williamson, who scored all nine of Magnolia's points in the first quarter, the Blue Eagles were only down by three points after the first eight minutes.
A 3-pointer by Williamson with a minute to go gave the Eagles a 9-8 lead, their last of the ball game.
Graden McKinney put Ritchie County up to stay with 49 seconds left. That bucket sparked a 17-2 run that transitioned into the second quarter.
Ethan Haught capped the run with a bucket with 3:30 left in the first half.
Freshman Hayden Pyles gave Magnolia a small sparked as he sank 3-pointers on consecutive possessions to cut the deficit to single digits, 25-17.
After three straight Rebel points, Chase Glover hit a 3-pointer to put Magnolia within single digits one final time.
Unfortunately, the hole was too big for Magnolia and Ritchie County outscored it 20-4 in the third.
"First of all Ritchie has a good team. We thought our magic number was under 40 points. We would have to keep it under 40," Tallman said. "But after they got the lead, we had to come out and we have some makers, but we just ran out of gas. I thought we played hard for the whole entire time. I wish Ritchie nothing but the best. They were the better team (Tuesday). I feel really bad for my seniors Gavin Postlethwait and Levi Cecil who didn't get the opportunity to play in this game. Everybody in the locker room was committed to them to try and win to give them the another opportunity, but it just didn't work out."
McKinney led the Rebels with a game-high 21 points while Haught netted 19. Isaac Slater rounded out the double digit scorers for the Rebels with 10 points.
Pyles had a team-high 16 points for the Blue Eagles while Williamson netted 13.
"We played a month earlier and we played them straight zone and lost a tight one," Ritchie County coach Rick Haught said about Magnolia. "So (Tuesday), they're pretty young. So, I thought we had to play man and thought in the first quarter we were still feeling each other out. We weren't doing the defensive pressure like we needed to and once we started stepping up the defensive pressure, good things started happening for us."
Woodson London and Chase Glover were also seniors that got to play in their final game that Tallman will have to say goodbye too.
However, there is plenty of young talent that the Blue Eagles will have in the years to come.
"I think we have a host of young talent. I think they learned quickly and on the fly," Tallman said. "We started three freshmen and we'll work out butts in the offseason and take it from there."