HAZARD — With his team trailing by one point against Harlan County in the semifinals of the WYMT Mountain Classic, Perry Central coach Shannon Hoskins had a plan for what he wanted to do with the final shot during a timeout with 2.6 seconds left.
Rydge Beverly had a different plan.
Hoskins decided to go with his star player’s idea instead of his, and he was very happy he did in the postgame press conference a few minutes after Beverly hit the winning 3-pointer just in front of the Perry bench to give the Commodores a 52-50 win.
“He wanted it. We were going to let him throw the ball and try to screen (Daniel) Carmical’s man and try to use our size to go up and get it,” Hoskins said. “(Beverly) wanted the basketball and he got the basketball. That was an excellent shot.”
Beverly scored 12 points and Dylan Knight added 10 to lead the Commodores, who improved to 4-1 heading into Saturday’s 8:30 p.m. championship game against Harlan.
Junior guard Trent Noah led the 3-1 Bears with 27 points and 15 rebounds. HCHS will face Breathitt County at 3 p.m. on Saturday in the third-place game.
“I don’t think we did anything wrong,” said Harlan County coach Kyle Jones, who suffered his first loss with the Bears. “We were pressing the first half, but we weren’t getting a lot of turnovers, so we thought we needed to play more of a halfcourt defense, and I thought our defense was outstanding. When it comes down to it, you have to make shots, and they made one more than we did at the end.”
Harlan County dominated the first 12 minutes of the game, building a 13-point lead midway through the second quarter, using the same 2-3 zone that led to a 19-point win at HCHS to open the regular season.
“I felt like they were trying to extend us, and we were playing right into their hands by dribbling it east to west, east to west and not hitting the teeth of it,” Hoskins said. “We subbed and the guys we subbed in gave us a lot of energy and we got into the teeth of it and going high-low a lot and using our size.”
Perry closed to within six points by halftime and one by the end of the third quarter. The Commodores took their first lead of the night on a Trayton Woods 3-pointer with 4:34 to play. The lead changed hands five times after that. The Bears went up 48-47 with 1:12 left on a steal and layup by Daniel Carmical. Dylan Knight scored for Perry with 26 seconds left, but Caleb Johnson answered with 12 seconds remaining when he scored off a pass from Jonah Swanner.
The Commodores raced down the court after the basket, but the ball was knocked out of bounds with the clock showing one second left. After a Perry timeout to set up the final shot, officials put 2.6 seconds on the clock, ruling the clock had not stopped when it should.
“I felt when we got a stop and had the ball and went to the spread with 45 seconds left, I felt they would have to foul us and we’d win the game at the line,” Jones said. “I was that confident, but they came up with a steal.”