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Dobson’s near-record night puts Parkersburg South into AAA title game

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Parkersburg South’s Ty Dobson put on a shooting display from beyond the arc in Friday’s Class AAA boys basketball semifinal as the Patriots dominated No. 5 Beckley 63-45, moving into Saturday’s championship game.

Dobson finished with 30 points, going 8 of 15 from beyond the arc for the No. 1 seed, coming up one 3 short of tying the state tournament individual record.

“We’ve never worried about individual or team records,” said Parkersburg South coach Mike Fallon. “As long as we’re winning, that’s the biggest thing. These guys don’t care. I’m proud of Ty for that – it would have been great if it would have happened, but I think Ty will take a ring over a 3-point record any day.”

Parkersburg South (24-3) couldn’t have had a much better start, draining three early 3’s in route to a 13-2 lead just into the first quarter. The Patriots held Woodrow Wilson to 5 of 19 shooting in the first half, taking a 25-14 advantage into the break. Dobson led Parkersburg South with 14 points in the opening half.

“I was just feeling it tonight,” Dobson said. “The offense kept coming to me and I kept shooting it.”

The Patriots scored the final six points of the third quarter to take a 49-28 lead into the fourth. Garrett Gilkeson also scored in double figures for the Patriots overall, finishing with 12 points on 3 of 5 shooting.

Parkersburg South as a team hit 12 of 27 shots from 3 (44.4 percent).

“Anytime we get those shots, it gets an energy level going,” Fallon said. “But once we hit them, we jumped right into our press. We wanted to play at that frantic pace the whole night.”

Noah Hancock scored 18 points to lead Beckley (17-7), while Corey Acord totaled eight — senior Brent Osborne scored five points, but was held to just 1 of 7 from the floor.

“They seemed like they had about seven or eight guys out there on the floor,” Osborne said of the Patriots. “Their defense was phenomenal. The credit goes to them. They outworked us and they beat us – that’s a tough thing to say, but they earned it.”

For Parkersburg South, the Patriots are finally back in the state championship after coming up short in recent years. Parkersburg South last made it to the title game in 2003 when the Patriots beat Martinsburg 68-57 for the championship.

“Give credit to all of the guys (of past teams) who have helped build the program back to where it was,” Fallon said. “This year, once we won the regional, it was a whole different mindset (from the previous two state tournament trips). We were thrilled to death, but we knew quickly we had three more big games in front of us.

“In our locker room this year, we posted our goals — goal No. 1 was to win the state championship,” Fallon said. “Goal number two was to refer to goal one.”

In Saturday’s championship, Parkersburg South will face the winner of Friday night’s game between Hurricane and Huntington.

“Huntington is an up and down game, they have no conscious,” Fallon said. “They kind of play like we do, they’re free and let it go. They don’t play up-tight. Hurricane is a little more disciplined with more sets. Two totally different kind of mindsets for which team we play on Saturday.”

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