Yellow Jackets survive another thriller

Posted February 13, 2016 10:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Staff Writer

What a week it was for Savion Smith.

Four days after swishing a 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds left that ultimately gave Chester a 37-35 win over Black Diamond Conference West Division leader Christopher, the junior guard/forward was at it again on Saturday.

Smith made the second of two free throws to give Yellow Jackets a 43-42 lead with 11.1 seconds left, and then partially blocked Trico forward Trent Koch's potential game-winning shot at the other end.

Chester's Jake Golding swatted the deflected ball into the backcourt as the Yellow Jackets held on for another thrilling victory for the home crowd.

"Odds are not very good for that to happen twice," said Chester coach Brad Norman, when asked about two last-second victories in a week. "But I'll take it."

Smith finished with six points for Chester (18-7, 6-2 BDC West), which was led by 11 points from Jack Weir off the bench and 10 from Golding.

"Savion's gotten better and better as the season's gone on," Norman said. "He's done a good job defensively for us and he's learning to play without fouling.

"That was his big issue early, was getting a couple of fouls early in the game and having to sit so much. With him not fouling so much and being able to play straight-up, that's allowed him to stay in the game a little bit more and give him a little bit more feel for the game."

As has been an issue at times this season, Chester fell behind early, spotting Trico an 11-2 lead that led to a Yellow Jacket timeout with 2:08 left in the first quarter.

But the Yellow Jackets battled back to take a brief 16-15 lead on a layup from Weir with 5:06 left in the second quarter. Trico (12-15, 4-4 BDC West) responded with an 8-5 run to take a 24-20 lead into the locker room at halftime.

The Pioneers took a 36-34 lead into the fourth quarter and had a 40-34 lead with 7:02 remaining.

"We played great defense," said Trico coach Andrew Wilson. "I thought (Chester) struggled to score for most of the game, they had very, very long possessions - which is good on their part for being patient, but good on our part for playing good enough defense to make them do that - I thought we rebounded well and I felt we kept them from running the floor."

Demontae Martin, who had five points for Chester, tied the game at 40 on a free throw with 4:42 left.

Weir put in a layup a minute and a half later for a 42-40 Yellow Jacket lead, but Koch tied it on a layup of his own about a minute later.

Koch led Trico with 16 points, while Grant Kelley added 15 before committing his fifth and final foul on Smith that set up the game's final sequence of events.

"He wanted to be out there on that last play, but unfortunately, he fouled out," Wilson said of Kelley. "He's a competitor. I love coaching him.

"He's a competitive kid and wants to win just as bad as I do and that's pretty darn bad."

Norman walked the Herald Tribune through the strategy of defending Trico's final possession after Smith's go-ahead free throw.

"Trico's really good about setting up back picks and then setting up a flex screen," Norman said. "We tried to just switch everything and we tried to match up, switch zone there and then we guarded the inbound (pass) pretty hard."

"We tried to make the inbound pass a little more difficult and then we were pretty much giving up the middle by the free-throw line," Norman added. "When (Trico) threw the lob in, we knew to lock down because we didn't feel like Koch would pull that jump shot."

"We felt like, with five seconds left, he would try to get to the rim. He made a move - you could tell it was a good move - but he slipped and he slipped in our favor."

Chester has won two out of its three matchups with Trico this season and the teams will meet for a fourth time in the semifinals of the Class 2A Sparta Regional on Feb. 24.

"We got a win, even though we played bad, is our biggest takeaway from tonight," Norman said. "We've got to do a little bit better job of not getting lazy on defense.

"Our rotations were there against Christopher, talking on screens was there against Christopher, it just didn't seem like we were there tonight when it comes to communication on the defensive end."

In the junior varsity contest, Chester took a 40-35 win over the Pioneers to improve to 10-7 and 6-2 in the BDC West.

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