Bill Lusk | WVOW Sports
CHARLESTON The scoreboard showed zeros, the red light around the backboard was lit as Logan's Ivan Miller stepped to the free throw line with his team trailing by two points.
All eyes at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center were on the 6'4'' junior forward as he stepped to the foul line with his Wildcats trailing Wyoming East by two points and no time remaining.
After Matt Hatfield missed a 3-pointer with four seconds remaining, Miller grabbed the rebound was fouled by Braxton Morgan as the clock struck zero sending him to the line with a chance to send the game into overtime.
Miller missed the first shot, and the fifth-seeded Wildcats dropped a heartbreaking 44-42 loss to fourth-seeded Wyoming East in the final Class AA quarterfinal game Tuesday night.
“It is disappointing that he missed that foul shot, there is no one person more disappointed than himself,” Logan coach Mark Hatcher said. “He thinks he is a leader of this team, and he is and that will hurt him.”
Miller, who worked through a broken hand suffered in fall workouts, was the first person to call Hatcher when he got the job in July and one of the first individuals to buy into Hatcher’s beliefs and vision.
Miller had eight first half points and five rebounds to help stake Logan to a 24-21 halftime lead, but with picked up three fouls in the second half and finished with eight points and 11 rebounds.
“Our kids love him, and we are going to be there for him. We felt very confident that he was going to make those, and he did not lose the game,” Hatcher said. “He played outstanding, probably one of the best games he has played against them all year long.”
Matt Hatfield knocked down a jumper and made one of two free throws to put Logan on top 39-37 with 4:17 remaining.
Zach Hunt knocked down a 3-pointer with 2:55 to play to give Wyoming East a one-point lead, 40-39, and Broc Johnson tipped in a miss shot to put the Warriors up 42-39 with 1:18 to play.
“Early in the game we were trying to find ourselves offensively and I’m not sure we ever found ourselves offensively tonight," Wyoming East head coach Kent McBride said. "A lot of that was due to Logan. Zach Hunt made some timely 3s, one in the first half and then when Talan (Muscari) got downhill and hit him in the corner. I’m pretty sure that gave us the lead."
Hunt, one of two Wyoming East seniors, finished with 10 points and made three of the Warriors four 3-pointers. His 3 to give the Warriors the lead was the seventh and final lead change.
"It means a lot when it's your senior year. It means a lot to these guys when their senior makes a play like that," McBride said "And as coaches we’ve told him that if he doesn’t shoot when he’s open, we will take him out. Kudos to him, but he’s been putting time in the gym too.”
Logan fought back to draw even with Wyoming East. First, McCormick Ilderton hit a jumper with 1:00 to play and following a Wyoming East turnover, Ilderton made one of two free throws to tie the score at 42 with 0:47 to play.
Nine seconds later, Johnson, who had the game winner with nine seconds remaining in Warriors 65-63 win on March 1 at the Willie Akers Arena, took a pass in transition from Braxton Morgan, and drove baseline drawing a Wildcat double team, but was able to find Konnor Fox, who put in the game winner with 0:38 to play.
“These guys have played so much basketball and they’re so youthful, you just have to let them go,” McBride said. “They get the ball inbounds and it seems to always find the right play. That comes down to many years of experience and relying on that you’ve trained so hard, you’re ready for the moment.”
Fox, who had made just one of his six field goal attempts, finished with four points.
“It wasn't going well at all for me today. Like I told coach, I about crapped on myself when I shot that thing," Fox said. "I’m being for real; it was a good feeling though, I’m just glad that we won.”
The game featured seven ties and seven lead changes, Logan led for the majority of the contest, but never had a lead bigger than six points, 21-15, when Ilderton scored in the paint with 2:48 to play before halftime. The largest lead for the Warriors was just three points.
Wyoming East defeated Logan twice during the regular season, winning 59-51 at Wyoming East on January 14 and again at Logan, 65-63, on March 1.
“That’s southern West Virginia basketball, coalfield basketball right there,” Hatcher said. “I’m glad that we got to display that in front of everybody, how it goes down every time that we play each other. With Logan County and Wyoming County, it’s about like that every time that we play. It has been that way for a long time down there, since the 50s and 60s with coach (Willie) Akers and Don Nuckols and those guys."
The top three teams, No.1 Williamstown, No. 2 Wheeling Central and No. 3 Westside, won their respective quarterfinal contest by an average of 39.3 points Tuesday.
“I told MetroNews in there, ‘I know you guys have had some pretty lackluster games.’ Hatch and I made sure that didn’t happen here at 11 o'clock tonight,” McBride said. "When you play a team three times, and the last time we played them was 15 days ago, there’s really no secrets in the bag."
"That was a game where two really good basketball teams just went into a rock fight (and) it literally went down to no time on the clock, so a lot of kudos go out to coach Hatcher and his squad," McBride said. "We knew what type of game that would be, and our young pups with a couple old heads figured out how to pull it out.”
Talan Muscari led Wyoming East with 18 points.
“Muscari did a great job of driving on us and he’s not really done that to us too much in the past,” Logan head coach Mark Hatcher said. “But tonight he was much better. But really everybody else, we sort of kept in check a lot better than what we had and eventually, I thought we were pretty good where we were supposed to be.”
Hatfield led Logan with 14 points, Miller had eight, Ilderton seven and freshman Lucas Lambert, Logan's leading scorer, finished with six.
Wyoming East improved to 19-3 and advances to the semifinals for the first time since losing to Poca in the 2017 Class AA semifinals.
“My message before the game was you cannot be afraid to fail,” McBride said. “I guess in these moments, they’re not afraid to fail.”
Logan finished the year with a record of 14-10. The Wildcats started the season with eight straight wins but lost three of its next four games before rebounding to win three straight games before closing the season with losses in seven of their final nine games.
“We challenged ourselves; we had a great start, and we were hoping to pull a couple of wins and we almost got one win at Williamstown,” Hatcher said. “We played a great schedule and when you play great teams they are going to expose you on certain things.”
“When you see the teams that we played toward the end of the year, and where we played, I think that has a lot to do with our record,” Hatcher said. “I mean anybody in this state want to go to Shady (Spring), go to Wheeling Central, go to Chapmanville, go to Westside, go to Wyoming East, and Williamstown, you are welcome to do that and see what kind of record you get.”
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