Madison County junior Isiah Smith just felt like it was time.
“We have a lot of young guys and I’m one of the older ones,” Smith said. “I felt like it was my job to take control of the game and take over.”
Down the stretch, Smith put the Mountaineers on his back, scoring 10 of his 24 points including Madison’s last six points in a 76-75 home victory over Page County. The win pushed Madison to a 10-0 start to the season.
“He had a heck of a game and I’m just really proud he was able to take over at the end and come through with a big shot,” said Madison coach Ben Breeden.
Smith hit three straight buckets on drives and poked a ball away for a steal to set up one of them, essentially matching Page blow-for-blow down the stretch to hold off a big charge by the Panthers that erased a 9-point Madison lead at the start of the fourth quarter. He hit the game-winner with about 30 seconds to play, driving hard to his left and hitting the bucket. Page struggled to contain Smith when he was going to his left all night, including back-to-back tough buckets on drives in the first quarter.
“I’ve been working on my right a lot but I don’t know what they were doing tonight, they were giving me my left so I’ll take it,” Smith said.
It was a mirror image of the squads’ first meeting where Page built a 15-point lead before Madison stormed back to win 58-55. This time the Mountaineers’ young squad withstood the charge and proved up to the challenge of quickly bouncing back after taking Page’s best shot despite an uneven defensive performance by Madison.
“We can break it down to a lot of little things we didn’t do defensively especially the box outs,” Breeden said. “But as far as being in a tough game, a very emotional back-and-forth game and being able to stay together as a team, you’ve got to be happy with that effort as young as we are.”
Dre Twyman finished with 20 points for the Mountaineers, giving Madison a solid scoring threat throughout. Dalton Taylor checked in with 13 points on the night.
Joel McKay led Page with 22 points and poured in 11 of those in the fourth. The Panthers four total 3-pointers in their huge fourth quarter surge. Ryan Cave notched 16 points and had one of those four fourth quarter 3-pointers. Caleb Andrews finished with 13 points for Page.
Madison will have a week off before taking on Warren County on the road Tuesday.
