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Ed Townsend | Democrat
Tri-Valley's Michael Post (23) goes up for a jump shot over Walton's Wyatt Finn (14) in the championship game of the Walton Tip-Off Tournament Saturday.
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Story by Ed Townsend
WALTON — January 14, 2014 — Righting the ship at this time of the season could prove to be important for the Tri-Valley boys’ basketball team as they posted an impressive win Saturday, defeating Walton 77-56 in the championship game of the postponed Walton Tip-Off Tournament.
The first round of the tournament was played December 4 with the Bears defeating Oxford Central and Walton winning against Sullivan West. Weather cancelled the championship round originally scheduled for December 8.
Tri-Valley’s two early season wins against non-league opponents Chapel Field and Livingston Manor were then met with two league losses to S.S. Seward and Chester making this tournament appearance crucial to which direction the Bears would be heading.
Tri-Valley coach Brian Tingley appeared pleased with the win saying, “we wanted to do what we usually do and play with a rotation of players and getting a bunch of guys into the game.”
Tingley stressed, “this allows us to speed up the game and not let them set plays.” As for his defense, Tingley said the players “were reaching in and fouling too much.”
When asked about Tri-Valley’s strength on the boards Tingley pointed out, “we lost a few games because we gave up rebounds so we have been working on that in practice and we did a good job on boxing out today.”
The first quarter of play set the stage for Tri-Valley’s fast- paced offense as the Bears raced to a 23-14 lead after eight minutes of play.
In the second quarter, Tri-Valley got stronger on the backboards and their offense started clicking with driving layups through the lane and two three pointers by tournament MVP Sam Tingley.
The Bears took a halftime lead of 45-31 and increased that to 65-40 going into the final quarter.
Tingley freely substituted all of his bench in the final eight minutes which allowed Walton to outscore Tri-Valley 16-12.
Alex Brown led Tri-Valley with 12 points scoring 10 points in the paint. Dion Lynch and Thomas Mungeer each had 10 points.
Jared Beach scored 10 points for Walton.
Tri-Valley committed 19 turnovers to Walton's 16.
“Tri-Valley came out and played aggressive man to man and they were over us all the time which forced us into a hurried up pace which took us out of our style of play,” said Walton coach David Gardepe. “And they totally outrebounded us.”
The win puts the Bears record at 4-2, 0-2 in OCIAA league play.
Tri-Valley players named to the tournament team included Donntae Brock and MVP Sam Tingley.
In addition to the varsity winning the tournament, the Tri-Valley JV won the JV tournament championship defeating Walton 66-50.
SW wins consolation
Sullivan West defeated Section IV’s Oxford in the consolation game of the Walton Tip-Off Tournament.
“We started slow and were tied at the half,” Sullivan West head coach Bruce Nober said. “Oxford went on a run to start the second half, but we made a couple of big shots and then Owen Andrews got us started with a two-handed dunk off of a steal. From there we went on a big run.”
Sullivan West’s Jiron Kevii was voted to the all-tournament team.
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