Saturday night at the William Byrd gym, the Hidden Valley Titan basketball team was looking to control the tempo.
Things looked good in the first quarter and second half. It was the second 8 minutes that ruined the Titan’s dance card.
Outscored 20-5 in the second frame, Hidden Valley could never recover before falling to the fast-paced Terriers 61-48 in the non-district matchup.
“It’s a four quarter game,” Hidden Valley head coach Troy Wells noted in the Titan locker room afterward. “We controlled things in the first quarter and played them pretty even in the second half. In the second quarter it got away from us and it snowballed.”
Hidden Valley had come out with a masterful game plan from Wells that had the Titans advance the ball up court with deliberation and show perimeter patience on the offensive end. Frustrated by the slow tempo, Byrd initially had trouble adjusting and trailed by as many as five points before heading to the second quarter down 10-7. Titan senior Graham Whitaker hit a pair of three-pointers in that stretch that paced the early Hidden Valley lead.
Byrd made some adjustments and opened the second quarter with a backbreaking 17-2 run that would prove to be the fatal blow to the Titans. Many of the Terrier points came at the charity stripe as Hidden Valley committed fouls during the Byrd offensive pushes and as a result of the significant Terrier height advantage. The Terriers went to the halftime break up 27-15.
“Byrd is tough to defend,” Wells pointed out. “We needed to play a little better defense in that stretch.”
In the second half, Hidden Valley held their own, but couldn’t make any major dent in the Terrier lead. Byrd led between 9 and 17 points during the final half, and Hidden Valley cut the deficit to 10 points three times in the fourth quarter, but the Terriers made key shots to keep the Titans at bay down the stretch.
“We were not surprised by Hidden Valley’s game plan,” Terrier head coach Kevin Tuck noted afterward. “We wanted to step things up, and after falling behind early we responded to get the lead in the second quarter. We just couldn’t stretch it out. Hidden Valley did a nice job slowing it down.”
6-foot-3 senior Evan Owens was the big gun for Byrd, scoring a game-high 23 points. Junior Dylan Gravley added 14 and senior forward Drew Hayden netted 12 points for the Terriers.
Whitaker paced Hidden Valley with 22 points, while juniors Jaret Lipps and Jordan Griffin followed with 7 points each.
Hidden Valley again played without senior floor leader Will Harrison. out with a severe bone bruise.
“We expect Will back next week,” Wells said. “He brings a lot to the table for our team.”
– Bill Turner
