West finishes Pizza Plus Thanksgiving Classic with dominating win over Claiborne

Four players scored in double figures led by Bereket Evans with 14. Rylin King chipped in 13 while Tory House and Paxton Seal had 10 points apiece for the Trojans who led 44-16 at halftime and reserves got a lot of action in the final two periods.

Nine players wound up getting into the scoring column for West.

Tyler Myatt led the Bulldogs with 13 points as Claiborne fell to 0-4 for the young season.

“We wanted to come out and play hard form the beginning and I thought we came out and set the tone and did that,” Dobyns said. “I thought that put us in a good frame of mind. Everybody got involved”

Dobyns said, “It was great to be able to get some other guys some minutes. It was a great game for that. They were able to come through and step up when they had the opportunity.

“We talked about not letting up at halftime and I thought we came out again and played well. I was proud of the boys for that. We played well today.”

West shot 54.4 percent from the field by making 31 of 57 including 6 of 14 three-point attempts. The Bulldogs were 14 of 50 for 28 percent and connected on 5 of 18 from behind the arc. The Trojans had a 37-23 rebounding advantage.

Bulldogs coach Cory McGinnis said, “We’re a little bit our of our element over here this week. We’re only a AA school and we’ve played three 4-A teams already.

“And, not making excuses but we’ve got a couple of players out right now and that makes it tough, also. I hope we’ll be okay when we get back to playing schools in our own classification.”

King had a steal and layup to start the scoring before Ethan Cupp’s three gave the Bulldogs their only lead. House put the Trojans ahead for good with a pair of free throws before Albyn Oruglica converted an old-fashioned three-point play and House grabbed a rebound and put it back in.

Cupp scored again to chop the lead down to 9-5. However, King scored inside and after Jalen McCullough’s rebound bucket he had a steal and dunk. Evans ended the run with a short jumper and the Trojans led 15-5.

It was 22-8 at the end of the first period and West scored the first six points of the second period to go in front by 20 and never looked back.

The Trojans built their margin to 31-14 and then closed the half with 13-2 run to lead by 28 at halftime. Evans had a dozen by halftime and House scored 10.

Ty Steisslinger’s bucket two minutes into the second half shoved the spread out to 30 and the Trojans led by as many at 27 in the third frame before taking a 64-29 edge into the final period. Seal scored five in the third quarter.

Jake Smith and Cole Holt had baskets for the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter before West scored the final 11 points. King and Seal had five points each in the last quarter for the Trojans.