Even when the ball did go through the basket for the East Fairmont Bees in the Class AAA quarterfinals on Wednesday at the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center, the Bridgeport Indians didn't make it easy in a 58-37 final.
 
"I thought our guys accomplished what the game plan was," Bridgeport coach Dave Marshall said. "Play defense the best we can and try to seal the gaps because we know they can penetrate."
 
Cayden Cooper, East Fairmont's top scorer, got 19 points the hard way: 6-of-16 from the field, 2-of-8 from 3.
 
"He was a big topic of conversation, as well as Hudson Brand and River McClain," Marshall said. "We knew they could score from a lot of places. With Cooper, even when he defended him real well in the first half, he managed to make incredible shots. He's a tough matchup. We had Sam Romano on him and rotated Gavin Williams on him to at least try to neutralize him. But without the rest of the guys doing their job, that's impossible."
 
Brand only got three of his 12 attempts to fall and was 1-for-6 inside the 3-point line.
 
And that was the good news for the Bees: East Fairmont's other players only made two field goals on 22 tries and were 0-for-8 from beyond the arc.
 
"We had a hard time getting started," East Fairmont coach Carter DeVault said. "I thought they were the more aggressive team defensively."
 
McClain, a big piece of the Bees' offensive hive, didn't get on the scoresheet.
 
"Let the offense complement the defense" was also part of Marshall's strategy. "We wanted to get paint touches ourselves, try to minimize the bad shots and take care of the ball. For the most part, I thought we did that."
 
"The strength of theirs is, any loose balls, they get," DeVault said. "Like, 50/50 balls, we didn't get any. That's what wins these games….they got the extra possessions and we did not."


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