Westwood Boys Rally, Then Shut Down Greenville For 5A Division 2 Championship

By WORTHY EVANS

Contributing Writer

COLUMBIA — Greenville broke out to an 18-4 lead on the Westwood basketball team in the first quarter of the 5A Division 2 state final.

By the second quarter at Colonial Life Arena Thursday night, the Redhawks were well into turning the tide.



Westwood rattled the defending 5A Division 2 champion Red Raiders with a full-court press, while Jayden Crews, D’Marcus Thomas and other teammates piled up points to shake off the deficit and close out the school’s first boy’s state championship with a 67-55 victory before a packed crowd at the University of South Carolina’s home court.

Third-year head coach Trent Robinson, who succeeded John Combs after coaching the junior-varsity team, said his team’s start was getting eerily typical of the veteran team. He noted his team’s first-quarter deficits in the last three road playoff games at Conway, St. James, and for the lower state championship against Goose Creek in Florence.

“When I saw that (Greenville’s run), I said I think we’ve been playing the same guys all year,” Robinson joked. “I trust my guys. I knew once we started our pressure our shots would come. Honestly, we’ve never started off a game good this year. … That’s pretty much how we’ve played. Do I want to go through that again? Never, Never. But that’s a strong group, seven seniors, 14 solids. I’m so proud of them.”

Coaches and players alike felt the win was payback for the team’s first loss of the season. Greenville beat Westwood 50-45 at at the Magic City Holiday Invitational tournament at Wilson High School in Florence Dec. 20.

Thomas finished with 26 points and Crews had 23 points, including four 3-pointers, and nine rebounds to fire the Redhawks (25-3).

“We were just playing our game. That’s our style. They say we’re the best backcourt in SC and we just proved that.” Crews, who signed with Converse University, said. “I had that chip on our shoulder when we lost 50-45 in Florence (Dec. 20) at Wilson. That really hurt. That was our first loss of the season.”

Thomas, who signed with Southern Wesleyan University, said he and Crews worked hard all season to become the scoring and defending tandem that helped bring Westwood its first state boys championship home, two years after the Redhawks girls track team won a share of the 4A state title three years ago.

“That’s really my brother, man,” he said. “I told him at the start of the season that we had to get us one, me and him, in the gym, day and night, every single day, we just lived in the gym.”

Those team brothers had their work cut out for them on the lighted University of South Carolina floor.

Moments after the tipoff, Greenville (23-7) got started with Caden Coleman’s basket and Keshun McCoy’s 3-pointer after a Westwood turnover.

Thomas sank a quick field goal from just beyond the foul line for Westwood’s first score, and later Crews hit a pair of soul shots to make it 10-4, but by Gavin Griffin’s layup at the 2:02 mark, the Red Raiders looked in complete control of the Redhawks.

Greenville finished the quarter leading 20-10, but that point was just beyond the Red Raiders’ high-water mark. Led by Crews and Thomas, the Redhawks climbed back into the game with a 13-4 scoring run over the first three minutes of the second.

Crews opened the second quarter with a 3. After Arkies Shell’s layup for Greenville, Thomas countered with a layup and Cylan McLeod made two free throws to cut Greenville’s lead to 22-17.

A 3 from Thomas got Westwood to within two points, and after two foul shots from the Red Raiders, another 3 from Crews cut Greenville’s lead to one by the 5:33 mark of the second quarter.

“One possession at a time, score-stop, score-stop, score-stop,” Crews said. “We went three stops in a row, and that’s what happened.”

Westwood and Greenville battled back and fourth over the next four minutes until Caden Coleman’s foul shots and a McCoy layup gave the Red Raiders a 32-26 lead with 1:07 left in the half.

That was the last time the Red Raiders’ lead was more than three points. Thomas ended the first-half scoring with a jumper with 23 seconds to go, and Greenville led 32-28 at intermission.

“Coach said that they was going to go on a run at the start of the game, so we handled the run and we kept going on runs,” Thomas said.

The second half was pretty much one big Westwood run.

Thomas sparked the Redhawks’ second-half surge with a 3 in the first 20 seconds of play, followed by A.J. Veal’s basket.

Arkies made a steal and layup at the 6:09 mark, and that was the last Greenville basket for four minutes.

In that time McLeod made good on a jumper and with the Red Raiders’ lead to 37-34, Thomas turned the game around.

Thomas hit another layup at the 5:08 mark. Some 28 seconds later Thomas made a putback to get Westwood in the lead for the first time in the game, 38-37. At the 4:13 mark, his layup with an assist from Daytron Cockfield brought the crowd noise to a crescendo around the arena.

As if the crowd exploded even louder when Crews drained a 3 with another assist from Cockfield.

Cockfield himself fed the Westwood crowd when he nailed a 3 with an assist from McLeod to give the Redhawks a 46-37 lead.

“One possession at a time,” Crews said about his team’s second-and third-quarter surge. “Don’t worry about scores, you’ve got to play defense. Defend, defend, defend. One step at a time, Defend, make the right shots, don’t turn the ball over.”

Coleman’s jumper for the Red Raiders broke the momentum briefly, but one of two foul shots from Crews gave Westwood a 48-39 lead going into the final quarter—a quarter-long 20-6 scoring run.

Greenville tried to climb back into the game with a 3 and a basket from Coleman to make it 48-44 with 6:06 to go. The Redhawks, playing with mountains more confidence than they did in the first quarter, made nothing of it, as Crews sank yet another 3 and Veal scored on a 3-point play and an additional basket to put Westwood ahead by double digits, 56-45.

With 3:38 to play, the Redhawks were merely waiting to clear the bench and storm the court. Oddly, Crews fouled out with 2:28 to go after McLeod’s basket gave Westwood a 58-44 lead. The rest of the Redhawks scoring was with free throws, and after L.J. Dendy’s layup for Greenville with six seconds left, the Westwood bench burst into celebration with its first state championship in hand.

“Since preseason when we were in the gym all day, we always had that chip on our shoulder,” Crews said. “A lot of people doubted us, but we just stayed poised and we came out with the dub.”

Robinson, standing in the middle of a court that more than a dozen Westwood boys basketball teams could not reach since the school opened in 2012, took in the sights of the fans, Westwood coaches, and players as they celebrated the victory.

“Right now it’s such a surreal moment,” he said. “Like when you don’t know how possible it is until you get closer and closer, and then like man, we have a chance to do it and we did it.” 

Westwood   10    18    20    19    —    67

Greenville    20    13    6      16    —    55

Westwood

D’Marcus Thomas 26, Jayden Crews 23, McLeod 8, Veal 7, Cockfield 3.

Greenville

Caden Coleman 16, Tucker Scholl 13, Shell 7, McCoy 6, Griffin 5, Farrow 5, Dendy 2, Hyde 1.