Elkins remained undefeated in District 20 action as they beat second place Travis 73-63 Jan. 22 at Travis High School.
The first quarter was evenly played with Elkins holding an 11-10 lead after eight minutes. In the second quarter, the game was tied at 23 with three minutes to go when Travis went on a 12-7 run to close out the half and take a 35-30 lead. The Tigers’ Javontae Hopkins scored five points and Jimmy Ohaz had four points during the run.
The third quarter was all Elkins as the Knights went on a 15-0 run to take a 45-35 lead with 3:10 to go in the quarter, and the third quarter ended with Elkins on top 52-43. The Knights’ Tyler Callegari scored eight of their 15 points during the run.
“Tyler is just a work horse. He is just one of those guys that it’s hard for the other team to prepare for. He just out-works the other people. He just flat out works hard. I love having him on my team,” Elkins Coach Albert Thomas said.
In the fourth quarter, the Tigers were able to cut the lead to 63-57 with a little over two minutes to go, but Jacolbi Harris made four free throws and Warren made two as Elkins held on for a 73-63 win.
Donovan Williams led Elkins with 23 points, Warren added 15 and Callegari finished with 14.
Coach Thomas told his team at halftime to play defense, and the team responded by shutting Travis out for the first 4:50 of the third quarter.
“I just told them not to panic. It’s always a 32-minute game, and so don’t panic. We didn’t play as well as we thought, and we were still in the game. So, we felt good about that. I just told them don’t panic and we just talked about what we had to do on defense. Defense is what we always hang our hat on, and they came out there and played some excellent defense. They followed the game plan that we talked about at halftime, and we did it,” Thomas said.
Elkins leads District 20 with an 8-0 record followed by Ridge Point and Bush at 6-2, and Travis at 5-3 with six games to go in the regular season.