By Erik Harris
ADAMSVILLE – There was a trophy to be won Friday night at Minor High School, and Clay-Chalkville (18-8) made certain that everyone knew it was theirs from the opening tip.
Defense fueled the Cougars to a 61-38 drubbing of Shades Valley in the championship game of the Jefferson County Large Schools Basketball Tournament.
Clay-Chalkville got its hands on seven steals, three of them going to the tournament’s most valuable player Hasan Abdullah. Those takeaways were quickly turned into high-percentage makes on the other end. They found bottom on 23 of their 46 attempted shots.
“Everything we do is predicated on our defense and we did a great job defending them,” Clay-Chalkville head coach Jeremy Monceaux said. “That’s our game, we score when we play great defense.”
A flurry of 3-pointers helped the Cougars get out to a double-digit lead early. The Mounties did manage three 3-balls of their own in the opening frame, but still trailed 21-9 eight minutes in.
Monceaux’s squad got the second quarter started with three offensive rebounds that were rewarded by an Abdullah triple from left of the circle to extend the lead.
Moments later, Nico Collins notched a 3-pointer of his own, but decided to go the old fashioned route to swell his team’s advantage to 28-9 with five minutes remaining in the half.
The second half didn’t get any prettier for Shades Valley. Edward Leggett made sure of that when he stroked a baseline 3-pointer moments after stepping out of the locker room. He would strike later from the wing, updating the score to 59-36 with three minutes remaining.
Senior David Turner did most of his damage in the closing minutes of the game. He went 3-for-5 from the field through the final quarter. Two of those makes were assisted by Abdullah.
For the Cougars, Abdullah dropped a game-high 22 points to go with six rebounds. Leggett and Turner both contributed nine points, and Collins finished with eight points and five boards.
Clay-Chalkville navigated its way through the tournament field by beating Pinson Valley on Tuesday, Minor on Thursday and Shades Valley on Friday.
Abdullah, Leggett, Turner and Kenneth Cotton played well throughout tournament play, landing them on the all-tournament team.
“We played really well for three days,” Monceaux said. “I’m about to tell them in the locker room, ‘Now I know what we can do when we really give great effort, really focus in,’ and if we can play like that, we can get special as we come to the end of this thing.”