A crowd of well over 400 fans watched the Bulldogs take a lead into halftime, only to see it evaporate as Matewan came back to seize a 53 to 34 win over their county and sectional rival, completing a regular season sweep of the series against the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs came out in the first quarter and perfectly executed a game plan that called for them to slow the tempo of the game and to deny Matewan a lot of perimeter shooting. The Dog’s kept the game in check and at the end of the first quarter the score was tied at 10 all.
The second quarter saw more of the same from Burch, as Dave Hatfield scored five in the frame to take a 21 to 17 lead into the dressing room at halftime.
The Matewan student cheering section had a group known as the “Matewan Maniacs” decked out in green paint and green wigs who helped lead the cheering section in boisterous cheers attempting to give the momentum back to their team. Apparently it worked.
Matt Kennedy hit for 9 points in the frame despite having to leave the game for a brief time after taking a tremendoes fall to the floor.
Going into the fourth, the score was Matewan 36, Burch 29. Burch never came close to the lead again as the Tigers outscored their rivals 19 to 8 in the third quarter of play and 16 to 5 in the fourth to produce the game ending score of 53 to 34.
Burch Coach Kevin Hatfield said “We executed our plan as we wanted to in the first half. In the second half we just didn’t get it done. They didn’t get the shot selection they wanted and we kept the game close.” Hatfield was clearly not pleased with the loss. “I don’t believe this stuff about taking things away from a loss or moral victories. The fact is we lost. But, we continue to show improvement. The big difference tonight was I had 14 and 15 year old boys, who are still learning, playing 17 and 18 year olds.”
“We came out kind of slow in the first half and we made some adjustments at halftime that obviously worked real well. It just proved again that you can’t really shut this team down because if you shut one down, there’s three others that can still take care of business.”said Matewan Coach Phillip Mitchell.
Scoring by quarters:
Burch 10 - 11 - 8 - 5 = 34
Matewan 10 - 7 -19 -16 = 53.
Scoring by Team:
Burch: Ryan Hatfield 8, Keith Hill 8, Zac Runyon 7, Dave Hatfield 5, Jacob Stratton 4, Corey Cook 2.
Matewan: Matt Kennedy 16, Colton Copley 15, Bradnon Burgraff 7,Josh Sammons 6, Logan Lester 3, , Nathaniel Mitchell 2, Max Whitt 2, Cory Lester 2.
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