Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

Local Sports

Related Photos

  • Jordan Weitzel File photo

    Jordan Weitzel

Discussion

March 11, 2010

PikeView ready for Oak Hill tonight

By JED LOCKETT Bluefield Daily Telegraph

ATHENS — The 2009-10 school year has so far been the year of the Panther — specifically, the PikeView Panther. The football team made it to the state playoffs for the first time since 1996 and got to the quarterfinals. The girls soccer team made it to the state semifinals for the first time. The girls cross country team went to another state meet.

Now the boys basketball team is having their turn in the spotlight as they will play host to Oak Hill tonight with the winner earning a trip to Charleston for the state tournament.

Anticipation for this game began last Friday night when PikeView came back from a 17-2 first-quarter deficit to beat Bluefield 69-60 for the Region III Section 2 title. The game was a milestone contest for PikeView athletics, but soon after it was played it became a distant memory.

“We didn’t dwell on it,” said PikeView head coach Bill Anderson. “We were hard at work the next morning. They celebrated that night and they talked about it just a little bit that next morning. Of course it was a big win and hopefully it will boost us on to the next game. But they’ve been preparing for Oak Hill and that’s all they’ve been talking about.”

Keeping his players’ minds on the task at hand has not been a problem.

“The mindset’s real good,” Anderson said. “They’re very focused. They know it’s a one-game season and practices have been very good and competitive and we’re doing things that we need to do to prepare for Oak Hill.”

One of those things was making sure their classmates could see the game. On Tuesday, the announcement was made that the contest would be held at the Carter Center at Concord University rather than PikeView’s home gymnasium. On Wednesday, Anderson explained why.

“They’re a unique group of young men,” he said. “We were supposed to play at our place and it was sold out real quick. So the boys, they were looking at our own students and they said, ‘We need more of our students there.’ And I said, ‘You only have two other possibilities, Concord or Princeton.’ And they all voted to move the game to Concord.

“It speaks a lot for them because they gave up their home floor. Not many teams would do that.”

But while PikeView does not play home games at Concord University, their players have experienced playing there.

“They’ve played here at Concord off and on,” Anderson said. “They would come over on the weekend or something like that, just pick-up games. But during the winter when our gym was closed, we had to come over here because of water leakage or something. Concord’s been available to us.”

This week, a scouting report on Oak Hill has been available to Anderson and his team. He saw the Red Devils lose to Wyoming East 60-36 last Saturday night, but came away impressed nonetheless.

“They’re big,” he said. “(Head coach Fred Ferri, Jr.) does a very good job with them. They haven’t gotten to where they are just because of name. They have solid players. We know we have to defend them. They shoot well. They didn’t shoot well at the Armory, but we know they’re a very good team. They don’t have that No. 2 ranking for nothing.”

Anderson explained that Oak Hill can score in a number of ways. Kaliff Wright and Jack Flournoy give the Red Devils an inside attack and junior Deandre Leonard adds the role of the stereotypical scoring guard.

“We’ve got to stop Wright and Flournoy underneath,” Anderson said. “And Leonard is a slasher, so we’ve got to contain him. Their other two guards can also shoot, so they’ve got five players that can probably match anyone in the state. So that’s the key right there, is matching with them and defending them in the right way for us to score.”

As far as the Panthers’ offense is concerned, they would like to have the same type of scoring balance they had against Bluefield. Tommy Symns led PikeView with 20 points, but Jordan Weitzel, Ben Nester and Tanner Ratcliff scored in double digits as well.

“If they play us a zone, then we’ll try to get it to the open man,” Anderson said. “If they go man on us, then we’ll run our offenses on that, but just trying to get it to the open man and being patient on offense.’”

Ideally, the Panthers would like to play as much of their offense in transition as possible.

“If we play good defense, that’ll be our offense,” Anderson said. “Our transition game, that’s a make-up in our offense. If we can get the ball and pressure the ball and get out and run and get some easy baskets, it’s good basically for any team, but it’s real good for us.”

With two top 10 teams fighting it out for one coveted spot, the game could come down to a contribution from someone that neither team expects or one team catching fire.

“Oak Hill bringing somebody off the bench that has an outstanding game, that’s something every coach has to look at,” Anderson said. “Other thing is one team just getting red hot and you know everything you’re going to throw up is going in and just the opposite, the basket can be 10 feet wide and you’re still bricking it. You’ve got to play through that and get back into rhythm and hopefully things’ll go well for you.”

Tip off is set for 7 p.m.

— Contact Jed Lockett

at jlockett@bdtonline.com

Text Only
Local Sports