Warriors down Bucs behind comeback effort

Published 2:07 pm Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Trailing 20-7 after the first, things were not looking great for the Warriors Monday night on Warrior Hill.

Happy Valley, however, found its footing in the second period before holding on for a 75-65 win over the University High Buccaneers.

“The biggest thing is that they didn’t panic,” said Happy Valley head coach Chuck Babb. “Some of them were wanting a timeout there early, but timeouts are great, but timeouts don’t stop runs. Kids do. That is something that we have to grow through.”

The Warriors opened things up in the second quarter as they outdid U-H 24-15 to cut the Buccaneers lead to just 35-31 heading into the half. In the second quarter, Happy Valley was led by Warriors Jake Surcey who posted ten points to help the Warriors cause.

In the third quarter, the Warriors kept moving as they outpaced U-H 21-15 to take a 52-50 lead into the fourth.

In the fourth, it was the Brayden Sams and Noah Stevens show as the two Warriors each posted 11 points to help HV outscore U-H 22-15 in the final period.

“They came back out in the second half and played a lot better,” said Babb. “Our shot selection in the first half was atrocious. For whatever reason, they didn’t believe me when I told them that we need to play in the half court and try to use our size. We went and tried to take a lot of long twos which is what we want people to do when we press. When we finally got it in our heads that we need to set the ball up and get it inside and play a little bit of inside-out, our threes started falling. Those guys got going.”

 Both Stevens and Sams finished the game with 22 points each while Surcey finished the game with ten points.

The Warriors hosted Cloudland Tuesday night. For info from that contest, pick up Thursday’s Elizabethton Star. Happy Valley will travel to Unicoi County Friday to open play in the Three Rivers Conference.