FAIRLEA- The Greenbrier East Spartans hosted the Woodrow Wilson Flying Eagles on Thursday night, Feb. 12 in front of a big crowd, a student ESPN table, and a lot of sports jerseys in the student section.
After jumping out to a hot start, Greenbrier East held on for a low scoring 49-45 victory and finished off a season sweep of their biggest Class AAAA nemesis.
The Spartans jumped out to a 9-0 lead and did it with balance as Sam Hawver (4), Darius Burns (3), and Brody Hamric (2) all scored during the stretch. That forced Beckley coach Ron Kidd to call a quick timeout as the crowd was already hyped up and into the contest. Jahden Robinson finally got the Eagles on the board with a 3 immediately after the timeout. The lead then extended to 14-3 highlighted by Burns’ second triple of the quarter and the Spartans were rolling.
East (11-5) led 17-7 after one.
With the Eagles in the midst of a 10-4 run, multiple fouls called on both teams, and with Hamric and Nathan Dixon without a field goal, Hamric hit two free throws to put East’s lead at 23-17 with 2:00 left in the half. On the next Spartan possession, Cai Jones missed a shot inside, but Hamric finally got his first field goal on an offensive rebound putback.
At the break, the Spartans led 27-19.
Robinson hit a quick 3 to open the second half, but Dixon responded with his first made basket of the night to make it 27-22 with just two minutes gone in the third quarter. That lead went to 32-22 following a Dixon dunk in which he got down the floor past the Beckley defense. The Eagles’ Gage Burdette knocked in a 3-pointer to pull Woodrow within five points at 32-27, but the Spartans ended the third on a mini 4-0 run that put them ahead 36-27 with one quarter left to go.
The Eagles (6-7) battled like crazy in the fourth and made it a game, however, East controlled the early part of the quarter. The Spartans got a huge 3 from Dhani Terry with 5:45 to go that put them ahead 41-29 and that basket turned out to be big because the Eagles started their comeback from that point and it started with Preston Clary and also included Robinson. Clary got a layup off a steal and the next time down, Robinson drained a right win 3 and just like that, the Spartan lead was cut to 41-35 with 4:21 left.
Greenbrier East’s Brodrik Gunter hit a long jumper with 3:45 to go that extended East’s lead to 43-35, but the pesky Robinson hit another trifecta from the corner this time, and the score was 43-38 with 3:32 left. Following a hectic couple of sequences over the next minute-and-a-half, Robinson, again, drilled a long 3 and the Eagles at that point had all the momentum as the Spartan lead was just 43-41. Robinson then tied it with two free throws with just over a minute left.
With East ahead 46-43 with 25 seconds left, Robinson finally missed a shot from deep, but the Eagles rebounded it. However, Clary drove to the basket but it was poked away by Hamric and Beckley fouled Burns, who calmly sank two free throws. Robinson got it back to a one-score game with a long two-pointer, but Dixon sealed the victory for East after hitting 1-of-2 free throws and the Spartan team and fans celebrated in unison after the hard fought, physical win.
The Spartans shot just 37 percent from the floor and was led by Burns’ 16 points. Hamric added 12.
For Woodrow, they shot 33 percent as a team and were led in scoring by Robinson, who finished with 19.
Greenbrier East will be back home on Saturday, Feb. 14 for a Valentine’s Day clash with South Charleston. The JV game is at 2:00 PM and the varsity tipoff is set for 3:30.
