SEYMOUR – Coming off a tough district loss to Jeff County on Friday, Morristown West faced a difficult task Monday night against the No. 4 team in DII-A, TKA.
Heading into the game, Morristown West coach Joe Dobyns talked to his team about handling adversity and the right way to respond to it.
Against the Lions Monday night, the Trojans punched adversity in the mouth.
After feeling TKA out for the first half, West came out with a purpose in the second half on both ends of the floor as they cruised past the Lions for a 52-39 victory.
With the win, the Trojans improved to 11-10 on the season and dropped TKA to 18-5.
While the offense was solid in the second half, it was the defensive effort that made the difference as the Trojans held TKA to 23 points below their average.
“I thought we played extremely hard,” Dobyns said. “I thought our defense was incredible. We were flying around, helping each other and just looked like we were having fun out there. The guys really responded to a tough loss on Friday. That was a really good team that we played right there. For us to be able to come onto their floor and do what we did defensively, was impressive. I was just really proud of the guys.
“We’ve talked all year about responding and how you respond to adversity. We hit some adversity on Friday, and tonight we came out here and responded. I’m just proud of them for that.”
On the offensive side of the ball, Jalen McCullough and Tory House once again led the way for West as McCullough had 16 points and House had 15 points.
While the two post players were expected to make big impacts heading into the season, both House and McCullough have continued to improve as the season has gone along.
“They’ve worked hard in the post and just continue to battle and keep working,” Dobyns said. “We started looking for them more and found them in the second half. I thought tonight we went inside and out, which gave us better looks outside as well as inside.”
However, despite the strong showing by McCullough and House, it was a team effort on Monday that led the Trojans to the victory. Along with those two, Bricyn Gudger had eight points off the bench, Rylin King had seven points and Damian Morgan, Ty Steisslinger and Bereket Evans each had two points.
“When guys are on the floor playing hard, that just trickles down,” Dobyns said about the team effort. “It just bleeds over to everyone that comes in and they want to play hard and be a part of it. That was exciting to see, and I hope we can continue to do that.”
It was TKA that started strong in the game with the first five points, but House answered with five straight to tie the game back up. TKA gained the lead back 20 seconds later and led until the final minute when McCullough and Evans each scored to tie the game at 11 after one.
In the second, the two teams traded the lead throughout as neither led by more than two points. With the score tied at 20, King made a shot that gave the Trojans a two-point lead at the break. Gudger was big in the second quarter for West with five points while King had four.
The third quarter was when West began to assert their authority. Up two with four minutes to go, House scored, McCullough scored and King converted an old-fashioned 3-point play to make it 33-25. TKA answered with three points, but House scored with 25 seconds left to give West a seven-point lead heading to the fourth.
In the fourth, West opened things up with two free throws by Morgan and a 3-pointer by Gudger that made it a 40-28 game. TKA scored four to break the drought, but West added six more as House scored and McCullough scored four straight.
But with West leading by 14, TKA made one last effort as the lead dropped to seven with 2:24 to go. With the crowd getting loud and TKA finding momentum, Dobyns used a timeout to try and get his team back on track.
“We just wanted to settle down and not let things get away from us,” Dobyns said about the timeout. “We talked a little about Friday night that we let it get away from us down the stretch, and we wanted to make sure we learned from that.”
Coming out of the timeout, it was obvious West had learned from Friday night as they scored the final six points of the game to close things out.
West will be back in action on Friday as they host Morristown East. Tip is set for 7:30 p.m.
“East is a really good basketball team,” Dobyns said. “They have been playing very well. We know it’s going to be a tough challenge. It’s going to take a great effort from us to get the job done, but we are certainly ready for the challenge.”
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