By BRIAN WOODSON
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, Va. — One of Graham’s two defeats this season came in an overtime loss at Fort Chiswell.
The G-Men remembered. It wasn’t going to happen again.
“They came at us with a vengeance,” Fort Chiswell head coach Derrick Jackson said.
Colby Hill scored 28 points, and the G-Men forced 27 turnovers, jumping out to an 11-0 lead on their way to an convincing 87-53 win over the Pioneers on Tuesday night at Graham Middle School.
Graham (14-2) avenged a 78-76 overtime loss to the Pioneers on Jan. 13.
“We tried to look at the game film and stats from last game and we looked at this film multiple times as a team from the last game to improve our mistakes,” Graham head coach Glynn Carlock Jr. said. “I knew our guys had it in them as far as wanting to get out and correct the mistakes that they made in game one over there.
“Hats off to them over there, they deserved to win that game, they played well. I thought we played well tonight and deserved to win this one.”
Definitely. Graham forced nine first quarter turnovers, including three in the opening 2 minutes of the game, scoring on a 3 by Tony Hood and five layups to take leads of 11-0 and 13-2.
“We challenged our guys, we wanted to play these guys hard here in our gym,” Carlock said. “We changed up some defenses that we ran against them last game that might have got us a little bit stagnant and stale.
“We went for more of a zone press back to a just a full man look today, run and jump out of it and try to trap and it posed some problems for their ballhandlers. It would allow us early to get us on an 11-0 run by primarily shooting a lot of layups.”
Fort Chiswell (11-7) was able to narrow the margin to 13-9, but Graham continued to force miscues and get shots on the other end, building a 25-13 lead at the end of the first quarter. That was close as the Pioneers would get.
“I think we came out a little flat, we didn’t shoot the ball well, and we had a lot of turnovers,” Jackson said. “Their pressure, that was the bottom line, we didn’t handle the pressure well. They were wanting it really well, you could tell.”
Graham, which had 11 3s in the game, negated the Fort Chiswell zone by nailing eight in the first half, and five in the second quarter. Hill had 16 of his 28 points in the opening half, making 10 for 12 from the field, including 4-4 from 2-point range and 4-6 from behind the arc. He also made his only four free throw attempts.
“We got down and we never bounced back, and stayed down,” Jackson said. “We got punched in the mouth and never recovered really.”
Hill, who also had five of Graham’s 20 steals, was joined in double figures by Hood — who had a trio of 3s — and Roman Workman with 12 points apiece. Workman also had four steals, six rebounds and five assists, while Nick Morgan had three steals and Hood had two. Israel Harris scored 14 points in the fourth quarter.
“They hit a lot of shots, and they were hitting them on out there too,” Jackson said. “They got some open ones, we didn’t play that great defensively, we didn’t play that good anywhere.
“Offensively, we had like 27 turnovers, and the defense, we didn’t do a great job of stopping penetration and covering the 3. We knew they can penetrate and shoot the 3 well. We got back on defense, that is about the only thing I can say we did good tonight.”
Fort Chiswell, which was led by Jordan Burks and Tanner Bailey with 10 points, was held to just four points in the second quarter. Gabe Shelton, who had 25 points in the earlier win, was limited to five points in the game.
“They did a good job, they were prepared for us, they were prepared for the zone,” Jackson said. “The zone gave them problems last time, they were very prepared for it and did a good job.”
It never got any better for the Pioneers, which fell behind by as much as 42 points in the second half. Graham cleared the bench in the fourth, with Harris scoring 14 of the G-Men’s 17 points in the period.
“We forced the issue tonight, over there they forced us to play their game, slow pace, slow it down, we didn’t hit shots, and credit to them,” Carlock said. “He does a good job with them, Derrick is a good coach, and those guys play hard, but tonight we were able to kind of get out and do what we want to do.”
It was, according to Jackson, Fort Chiswell’s most lopsided loss of the season.
“We have just got to move on, they are a good team, our kids knew that coming in,” Jackson said. “We have been in a lot of games, the worst score we have probably lost by is 10.
“Except for this game we have had an opportunity in every game. We have played a tough schedule, we have just got to get ready for our conference tournament and move on. We will bounce back, we will be all right.”
Graham will host Grayson County on Thursday, visit the Blue Devils on Friday, and will then host Bland County on Saturday. Three more games remain next week, with the Southern Empire Conference (39) tournament slated to begin on Feb. 17. The semifinals and finals will be played at Tazewell.
“The good news is we should have our legs because we haven’t had a lot of games due to the snow,” Carlock said. “We have had a little break from games and our practices have been few and far between due to this weather too.
“I am very pleased when we challenged the guys to be able to step out on the court tonight and do what they did. We have got to do it three more times this week and we have got to do it three more times the following week to get ready for this conference tournament.
“You hope to be playing your best ball at this time of the year, and just hope it continues. If we work hard and we stay with our nose to the grindstone, then I think it will.”
Emil Curto and Chandler Cooper scored 16 points each to lead the Graham junior varsity to a 42-22 win, also improving to 14-2 on the season.
bwoodson@bdtonline.com
/ Twitter @bdtwoodson

at Graham Middle School
FORT CHISWELL (11-7)
Gabe Shelton 2 1-2 5, Bryson Booher 2 1-2 5, Travis Jakubiak 1 0-0 2, Jordan Burks 2 6-8 10, Jordan Crockett 4 1-1 9, Tanner Bailey 3 4-4 10, Justin Archer 3 0-0 8, Jarred Shephens 0 2-4 2, Ben Van Dyne 0 0-0 0, Elliot Delp 1 0-0 2, Ben Porter 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 15-21 53.
GRAHAM (14-2)
Tony Hood 4 1-2 12, Roman Workman 5 1-3 12, Thomas Clarke 2 0-4 5, Colby Hill 10 4-4 28, Tanner Miller 2 0-1 4, Nick Morgan 1 0-0 3, Garrett Dalton 2 2-2 6, Taymon Cooke 0 1-2 1, Chris Jones 0 0-0 0, Israel Harris 3 7-10 14, Jacob Simpson 0 0-0 0, Nick Shoemaker 0 2-4 2. Totals 29 18-32 87.
Fort Chiswell...................13 4 16 20 — 53
Graham............................25 23 22 17 — 87
3-point goals: FC 2 (Archer 2); GR 11 (Hill 4, Hood 3, Workman 1, Clarke 1, Morgan 1, Harris 1). Total fouls: FC 23; GR 16. Fouled out: Rider. Technicals: Miller, Rider, Graham bench. JV—Graham (14-2) 42 (Emil Curto 16, Chandler Cooper 16); Fort Chiswell 22 (Drew Caudill 6, Andrew Stoots 6).