Powell Valley 42 - Twin Springs 35

From the Kingsport Times-News

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NICKELSVILLE "? Payback is good, wherever you can get it. If it's on the road at Twin Springs, more the better.
Myron Pinkston scored 11 points and grabbed seven boards as Powell Valley beat Twin Springs 42-35 in non-district action Wednesday night.

In the girls' game, the Lady Vikings got 13 points from Tasha Trent as Powell Valley held off the Lady Titans 43-37.

"We really felt like we needed to come here and get a win because we owed them one, basically,"? said Powell Valley boys coach Zack Moore, whose squad was beaten 52-49 in overtime by the Titans in December.

"This is a tough place to play. It doesn't matter what year it is,"? he added. "If you come down here and win, it's always a big win."?

Pinkston, Delmas Lawson and Thomas Haines combined to hit four of the Vikings' five 3-pointers in the first half, which ended with Powell Valley aheasd 20-18.

A jumper in the key by Joshua Spurlock put the Vikings (7-4) up 22-18 with 6:31 left in the third period. The Vikings turned up the intensity on their full-court pressure with 3:53 left and picked up three rapid buckets off backcourt steals to lead 28-18 by the 3:32 mark.

"We're pretty athletic and quick,"? Moore said. "We can usually get a few steals a game. Tonight it was very useful for us."?

It didn't take the Titans long to respond to coach John McCrary's urgent timeout. Mark Dockery, who finished with 16 points, eight rebounds, five assists and a block, nailed an NBA-and-then-some trifecta at 3:14. By Devon Matthews' 3 with 1:09 to go in the frame, the Titans were back in it at 28-25.
Powell Valley got seven consecutive points "? including a 3 "? from Jordan Martin in the opening minutes of the final stanza. A three-point play by Haines put the Vikings ahead by nine with 3:04 remaining in the game.

After whittling the lead to five on buckets from Jeremy McNew and Tyler Estep, the Titans trapped the Vikings into a timeout with 1:32 on the clock. With six fouls to give, it took the Titans a minute to finally send the Vikings to the foul line for bonus free throws. Three fouls in, Twin Springs failed to capitalize on a Viking turnover.

Three fouls later, Powell Valley finally got sent to the line. The Vikings went on to miss the front ends of three consecutive one-and-one opportunities. This time, the misses didn't count against them.

"We're lucky they didn't come down here and score. Any other game, that might kill us,"? said Moore, who thought Haines did a great job guarding Dockery off the bench.

Cedric Mitchell had five boards for the Vikings .

Estep had six points, six boards and four blocks for the Titans (4-6) while McNew had five rebounds.

"We don't like to foul. But then we go out and try to foul and we couldn't foul. We're too nice,"? quipped Titan coach John McCrary. "We had a couple of empty possessions there where we got exactly what we wanted, got a couple of point-blank shots and missed them. But I really wasn't displeased with our effort."?

The Lady Vikings (5-7) got eight points, including two treys, from Chabrae Roark. Holly Gilliam had eight rebounds and Trent seven.

The Lady Titans (0-10) lost three-year starting point guard Katie Lane to a broken finger earlier this week. Lane, a junior, underwent surgery Wednesday to have the break pinned and likely will miss the rest of the season.

Emily Kincer scored 12 to lead Twin Springs. Freshman Ashley McConnell scored six points and grabbed six boards.

TS got lucky to beat us at PV, if not for a very questionable charge call the mighty Titans would be 0-3 against the LPD top two teams. At least this will shut all the TS people up about how bad the LPD is, they'd be lucky to finish third in this league.

The first game was very early season for Powell Valley, so I wouldn't say it was all luck. In Powell Valley's first couple of games, I'll be honest to say I thought, "they're just not playing very well." But, PV has improved greatly, and I think a lot of that had to do with Pinkston.

I'm not saying it was all lucky they won, it was a great game. There isn't much difference in the two teams, PV's more athletic and I think is slighty better. All I was saying is they were lucky to win the game at PV, down late in the game without the ball and are bailed out by a charge call. To me, PV is where they should be in basketball this year, next year to me should be PV's basketball year. Especially with Coeburn and Gate City leaving the LPD, those are the only two LPD teams to have beaten them to this point.

PV is playing good basketball right now.

I can't help but think back to comments made by some people pre-season that PV wouldn't be good in basketball because this is Zach's first year coaching, and the assumption that the boys wouldn't be able to play together as a team.