Haviland Slam Sends Cave Spring Past PH 58-55

Cave Spring ball handler Zach Shannon attacks against PH defender Dom Joyce Tuesday night in the Knights gym as Cave Spring pulled out the 58-55 River Ridge win.
Cave Spring ball handler Zach Shannon attacks against PH defender Dom Joyce Tuesday night in the Knights gym as Cave Spring pulled out the 58-55 River Ridge win.

In the traditional pre-game ceremony saved for the last regular season home game, the Cave Spring boys basketball team honored five senior players and one indispensable manager before Tuesday night’s River Ridge matchup with Patrick Henry.

Knight 6ft-7 junior center Baker Haviland made sure the senior night festivities finished with a bang, sending Cave Spring to the 58-55 victory.
With Cave Spring up 54-53 with under 30 seconds to play, and the Patriots looking for the go-ahead basket, Cave Spring’s Jake Furrow and Paxton Daniels collapsed on a drive to the hoop by Patriot guard Andrew Harris.
Harris’ layup move was disrupted in midair, with Furrow getting his hand on the ball. The Knights grabbed the loose ball and an outlet pass hit Haviland in stride just past mid court. The lanky big-man took one glance at a trailing defender before sailing in for the two-hand slam that not only moved the rim, but also brought down the house.
The monster flush put Cave Spring up 56-53 with 11.7 seconds left. Routine slammer-jammer for Haviland? Not quite.
“That’s the first slam dunk I’ve ever made in my career….ever…..I mean the first one EVER, ” Haviland said with a huge grin outside the boisterous Cave Spring locker room. “I just thought ‘two hands.’ Once I got up to the rim, there was no doubt. It was senior night and we had to protect the castle.”
Patrick Henry still had one last chance, but their subsequent inbounds pass sailed out of bounds. PH was forced to foul, and Cave Spring senior Brody Hicks closed the deal with two free throws with 11.1 seconds on the clock. The Patriots got a meaningless layup  with three seconds remaining, and with PH out of timeouts, the Knights watched the final seconds tick off.
“It was a big night for our seniors, but a bunch of our guys off the bench stepped up big,” Cave Spring head coach Jacob Gruse noted. “Baker had a huge night off the bench. He disrupted PH on defense and got a couple deflections. But, the slam blew the top off. I mean with all the students in here, it took the roof off the place.”
The stage was set when the five seniors, Hicks, Daniels, Mason Reyer, Zach Shannon and Noah Sharp all started, along with senior manager Jordan Poff manning the sideline.
Cave Spring used an early 2-3 zone to put the PH offense out of sync, and the Knights rushed out to a 16-9 lead after one quarter. The Knight lead reached 14 points, 26-12, on a Haviland 3-pointer midway through the second, but Patrick Henry regrouped to close to 31-25 heading to the break.
PH senior Terrell Anderson’s strike from behind-the-arc was answered by an old-fashion 3-point play be Haviland early in the third quarter that had the Knights up 38-31. Patrick Henry then finished the frame with an 11-2 run to take a 42-40 lead to the final 8 minutes.
The Patriots scored the opening basket of the fourth to take their largest lead of the night, 44-40, but with 6:16 to play Cave Spring reached the bonus at the charity stripe and it proved to be a deciding factor down the stretch.
Reyer tied things at 46 with both ends of a one-and-one at the 5:23 mark, and 8 of Cave Spring’s next 12 points came at the line, more than countering senior Quishon Calfee’s breakaway that put PH up 48-47 and a bomb from behind-the-arc by Harris that had given the Patriots a 53-52 lead with just over a minute left.
PH’s early play was troublesome to head coach Jack Esworthy.
“We just came out really passive,” Esworthy said inside the Patriot locker room. “I don’t know why. We talked about good starts.”
“They made us pay when we didn’t execute,” Esworthy added, “When they were in the 2-3 zone, we just didn’t attack the gaps.”
Reyer had a game-high 15 points for the Knights. Hicks added 14, with Daniels and Haviland each canning 9.
Anderson led the PH attack with 14 points, while Dom Joyce knocked down 10, with Calfee and Harris scoring 9 and 8 points, respectfully.
Bill Turner

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