By TOM BONE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLAND, Va. — Asher and Darryl know how to taketh away, and how to giveth.
The Bland County duo of Asher Dillow and Darryl Clark accounted for six steals and 50 points in the Bears’ 75-47 win over the Rural Retreat Indians in a Group A, Region C, Division 1 first-round game at Bland High School on Tuesday night.
The Bears (13-11) got four steals in the first three minutes, converting each into field goals for a quick 8-2 lead. The Indians (11-13) tried to play catch-up for the rest of the contest.
Bland County head coach Rich Hankins said the quick start was “just extremely important for our ballclub. Our center [John Robert Miller] was out with a strep throat.
“To come out with a lot of defensive intensity, and to convert those into fast-break scoring opportunities, it was absolutely huge for our ballclub.”
Clark, playing up court on defense, purloined the first two steals. He had 12 points by halftime and 24 in the game.
Clark said, “We started off with a couple of buckets from our defense, not even playing offense, so that was good for us.”
Hankins said Clark provided “just a tremendous boost. Darryl’s got a tremendous amount of athletic ability. When he plays up in the passing lane, good things are going to happen.”
Rural Retreat head coach John Phillips said, “We had missed, in that first quarter, probably enough layups to have it close or maybe even be in the lead. We were playing solid defense at that point.
“We thought if we could chip it down ... maybe some of those shots that we were bouncing off the rim would start falling, but they didn’t.”
The Indians, who finished second in the Hogoheegee District, went on a 6-2 run of their own to open the second half, cutting a 14-point deficit to 36-26.
But the Bears ended the third quarter with a 21-6 run, making five consecutive three-pointers to forge a 62-37 lead, essentially deciding the matter.
Phillips said, “Most of those threes were defended pretty well, and they just buried them. ... Those two kids made the shots in the second half that just took all the air out of our balloon.”
Dillow had five field goals, three of them treys, and a foul shot for 14 points in that flurry, on his way to 26 points. He said, “We knew they were going to try to make a run there right out of halftime. We knew we had to come out and play good. We knew it wasn’t over.”
Clark said, “We knew that if we would just continue to play good ‘D,’ we’d keep the lead and come out of here with a win.”
The floor was almost completely populated by substitutes in the final three minutes, going a combined 1-for-11 shooting.
For the game, even with those errant shots added in, Bland County was 30 for 58 and Rural Retreat was 21 for 56 from the floor — and only 3 for 10 at the foul line.
Jonah Miller had 11 rebounds for Bland County and Travis Foster had 11 for Rural Retreat. Jay Linkous led the Indians’ scoring with 12 points.
Hankins said, “The biggest thing we tried to do was to deny that first pass, to slow their offensive sets down. I thought we did a pretty good job of that. Then, when they threw the pass in to the low post, we had one man in front of the low post and one man on the back side.”
The Bears defeated the Indians 64-49 on Dec. 5 behind 18 points from Chase Hankins, and won 85-70 on Dec. 30. In the second contest, Clark had 26 points, hitting four of Bland County’s nine three-pointers, and Dillow had 24 points.
“They gave us fits, both times,” Hankins said about the Indians. “ We knew coming in, we had to play strong defensively to beat them.”
“We were pretty familiar with their two top scorers in particular, in Foster and Sam Hadaway. I thought we did a tremendous job defensively on those two kids from start to finish.”
Dillow said, “Coach just told us to deny them the ball,” Dillow said. “He said they’re catch-and-shoot guys, and if you don’t let them catch it, they can’t shoot.”
Hadaway had eight points and Foster managed two field goals for four.
Clark said, “They say it’s hard to beat a team three times, and we knew it would be. So we just had to come out and play good defense, and we did.”
Phillips said he is losing eight seniors from the Rural Retreat roster who have accounted for about 80 percent of the team’s scoring. He had coached them on the JV level prior to moving up to varsity.
“They mean the world to me,” the coach said. “They grew up some, and got better. I hate to see them go. But I hope that we did something with them that will help them to succeed somewhere down the road and be good citizens and leaders, that I think our country needs.”
The Bears move on to the semifinals and a date on Thursday with defending Division 1 state champion Galax (22-2), again the top seed in the region, at Eastern Montgomery High School. That will also be the site for the finals on Saturday.
Dillow said, “I’ve been playing since my freshman year on varsity and this is the first time we’ve ever got to move on to the semifinals. ... I’m very happy about it.” He also noted that Galax is “probably the best defensive team I’ve played against all year.”
Hankins said taking on Galax is “going to be a tough task, but I tell you, if we shoot the basketball as well as we did tonight, we’ll have a chance. We’ll have a chance to go in there and steal a victory from them.”
Clark said the Bears’ fans “travel pretty well ... I feel that they’ll come out and see what we can do.”
— Contact Tom Bone at
tbone@bdtonline.com

At Bland High School
RURAL RETREAT
Tyler Holman 3 0-2 8, Lukas Langston 2 1-5 5, Sam Hadaway 4 0-0 8, Tyler Holliday 2 0-0 4, Travis Foster 2 0-0 4, Zayne Williams 1 0-0 2, Dillon Crigger 1 0-0 2, Jay Linkous 5 2-3 12, Zach Stepp 1 0-0 2. Totals 21 3-10 47.
BLAND COUNTY
Asher Dillow 10 1-1 26, Jonah Miller 0 0-2 0, Tyler White 2 0-0 4, Dylan Walker 1 0-2 3, Darryl Clark 10 1-1 24, Chase Hankins 4 4-5 12, Jonathan Goins 1 0-0 2, Derek French 2 0-0 4. Totals 30 6-11 75.
Rural Retreat.................12 8 17 10 — 47
Bland County.................20 14 28 13 — 75
Three-point goals: RR 2 (Holman 2); BC 9 (Dillow 5, Clark 3, Walker 1). Total fouls: RR 13, BC 11. Technical foul: RR, Holliday. Fouled out: Holliday.