CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Tug Valley became the first piece to Class A’s Final Four on Thursday morning as the No. 3 Panthers beat No. 6 Tucker County 67-55 in a boys basketball quarterfinal matchup.
“I felt like we came out really ready to play from the get-go,” said Tug Valley coach Edwyn May. “I thought we played well the first quarter and we were flying all over the place defensively.”
Tug Valley (20-3) led 25-18 at the half behind Jeremy Dillon’s eight points and seven rebounds. The Panthers used a 6-0 run late in the third quarter to gain even more separation, expanding their lead out to 49-32 at the 1:52 mark.
“I thought we came out flat, which has kind of been typical of us this year,” said Tucker County coach Dave Helmick. “We fought with them. We knew they were a pretty good team and that we were going to have to play pretty good defense to have a chance. For the first half, we did a great job, but the third quarter just killed us.”
Tucker County (19-5) was led by Seth Evans who scored 21 points.
Dillon, meanwhile, did a little bit of everything for the Panthers, scoring 21 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, collecting five blocks, four assists and four steals.
“I just tried to keep high intensity the whole game,” Dillon said. “But we also wanted to be even keel, don’t overplay at first, but still play hard. We love playing in tight games, we’re competitive and we about fight every day in practice – that’s just how it is. We’re competitive.”
Tyler May also finished with 17 points for Tug Valley as he led the team with six of its 20 steals.
“You always hear that defense wins championships,” May said. “We always pride ourselves on defense and we always want to win the turnover battle. The more you turn your opponents over, you want to convert them into scores. I don’t know how well we did that today, but we hope to do it better.”
The Panthers converted just fine on Wednesday, scoring 23 points off of 23 forced turnovers. May and Dillon, just sophomores, were both a part of last year’s state tournament team as freshmen – a group that lost a 15-point fourth quarter quarterfinal lead to Williamstown.
On Thursday, they finished the game.
“We have more experience than last year,” Dillon said. “We were just freshman last year and froze a bit because it was our first time.”
Now, the Panthers are back to the semifinals and serious contenders for another state championship.
Tug Valley moves on to face the winner of Wheeling Central vs. Parkersburg Catholic on Friday morning at 11:15 a.m.
Watch players and coaches react in postgame: