The Cumberland County Jets battled valiantly Friday night in a non-district basketball battle with Walker Valley.
CCHS got productive scoring for Houston Torres, Nolen Carter and Sol Sitton, but the Jets struggled to control the basketball in key situations. Walker Valley converted some of those miscues into buckets on the other end as the Mustangs beat the Jets 66-45.
“Walker Valley is a really good team,” said Cumberland County coach Taylor Denney. “They’ve got a lot of kids that can handle it, a lot kids that can shoot it. He has some size inside, and he probably played 10 or 11 kids in the first half. They all contributed.”
The loss drops Cumberland County to 1-5 on the year, while Walker Valley improves to 6-3 overall.
“We’ve got to value the basketball a little more,” Denney said. “Some of that is fundamental things we’ve got to clean up, some skill set things. We’re just not being patient, trying to force things. Turnovers are definitely a problem for us.
“You can’t give up 17 or 18 shot attempts in a game, and of course those are going to turn into points for them. Turnovers have been the biggest problem for us right now.”
Cumberland County got behind early in the game, falling behind 18-10 after the first quarter. Torress nailed a jumper in the paint for the Jets and when Nolen Carter put a rebound back for a bucket, the Jets trailed 28-14 with 2:51 to go in the first half.
CCHS scored five of the last seven points in the period to pull the Jets to within 35-21 as the teams left the floor for intermission.
“I don’t think we played as well as we could have, or as well as we expected we would have,” Denney said. “We’ve got to get better on the glass. But I thought our pressure was pretty good. We ran a couple of different presses, and we got some mileage out of both of those.
“We turned the ball over way too much. We’re averaging over 15 turnovers per game which is way too many to beat anybody, much less the caliber of teams were playing.”
In the third period, the Jets tried to come back. Carter scored on a 3-point play to make it 37-26 and when Sitton scored at the 3:30 mark, the Jets trailed 46-30. Cumberland County closed out the third period with a 55-35 deficit.
Torres, a freshman, had the hot hand for the Jets. He had 18 points. Carter scored 10 points, while Sitton scored six.
Ethan Dixon tallied four points, Asher Mifflin had three, and Andrew Dennis and Isaac Scarbrough scored two points each.
Cash Cates led Walker Valley with 23 points. Graham Campbell added 11 points, and Turner Clayton scored seven.
“I thought our presses looked good,” said Denney.
“That’s something we’ve worked on. Even though you might not get a live ball turnover, you might force a bad pass. I think we got some good things out of that. The thing is with pressure, you’ve got to get something good out of it on the other end.
“We’re getting some extra possessions, but we need to get something out of those extra possessions. I thought our pressure was the best part of our defense. We just have to turn that defense into offense.”
Up next, Cumberland County will host Rhea County Dec. 12, before visiting Clarkrange on Dec. 15. Tipoff for each game is 7:30 p.m.
‘We’ve got to find some more guys that can help us on the floor,” Denney said.
“We’ve got to figure out how and where those pieces fit. Offensively, the biggest thing is we’ve got to clean up our turnovers.
“We’ve also got to control the defensive glass. We’re giving up way too many offensive rebounds. When we rebound, I think we’re a solid team defensively. I just think teams are getting way too many second and third looks. You can’t beat anybody that way.”