Sports
Vinton County Reaches Triple Digits Over Nelsonville-York
By: Jerry Kirven
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Vinton County bounced back from the Alexander loss Tuesday night by breaking, busting, and ultimately beating down the Buckeyes 100-52.
A twelve-game win streak snapped, the first loss in the TVC in almost a year. Vinton County’s loss to Alexander four days ago, hurt, and they made sure somebody was going to pay for it. Unfortunately for the Buckeyes they were Viking’s victim of choice.
The game started off well for the Buckeyes when on the first Viking possession, Nelsonville-York senior Hunter Edwards viciously flattened Derick Jones’ layup attempt out of bounds. However, that was the only bright spot for the Buckeyes for the rest of the quarter. Coach Jay Kline’s decision not to start guards Ronnie Wend and Justin Perry backfired and Vinton County’s speed took over early.
Vinton County put its foot on the pedal and were dropping threes like they were going out of style. The Buckeyes had no answer for the speed of Jones and Tristan “The Show” Barote and were forced to foul. The Buckeyes seven first quarter fouls were certainly a cause for the 12-point deficit at the end of the half.
The Buckeyes are a proud team with strong will, and in the second quarter the Vikings were looking to break that will and put their foe away. Naylan Yates went off from beyond the arc going 5-10 for the night. The Vikings refused to let up on the Buckeyes on either side of the ball completely neutralizing Aron Davis, who finished 4-13 shooting and with an uncharacteristic nine points.
By the end of the half the Vikings were clicking on all cylinders and scoring whenever and wherever they wanted to. Coach Kline and the Buckeye had a huge mountain to climb going into the half down 51-18.
The Buckeyes’ home crowd was hoping for a turnaround but all they got was turnovers and more of the Vinton County big three. Vinton County had Nelsonville-York on the ropes and went for the kill in the third quarter. Completely dominating the Buckeyes in all facets of the game,the Buckeyes were out rebounded, out hustled, out coached and out played for 48 minutes and with the sight of a 43-point deficit at the end of the third, the only thing Nelsonville-York fans could look forward to was the final buzzer.
With the Vikings putting up an absurd 77 points by the end of the third quarter the Vikings usually would take their foot off the pedal and put their offense in cruise control to a victory. However, Vinton County had other plans. Vinton County coach Matt Combs had already sit Derrick Jones (15 points), Tristan Bartoe (15 points) and star of the game Naylan Yates (26 points) but he couldn’t stop his bench from going for triple digits which they reached with 19 seconds left with their 16th three-pointer of the game.
The Vikings who improve to 13-1, 6-1 look to take their mean streak back to MacArthur when they take on Athens on Friday. Nelsonville-York who now drops to 8-7, 1-6 must find a spark if they want to turn around their disappointing TVC campaign. They battle Eastern at home on Saturday.