Springs Valley Community High School

The Springs Valley boys’ basketball team knew that it was going to face a challenge when Orange County rival Paoli arrived at The Hawk’s Nest on Friday night. The Rams were 8-3 with wins over Forest Park, West Washington, and Northeast Dubois on their resume and, thanks to a versatile starting five, they could counter any number of gameplans the Blackhawks threw at them. Through three quarters Springs Valley stayed within striking distance, trailing 49-42 entering the fourth, but the Blackhawks wouldn’t be able to reel the Rams in and make a comeback. Instead, they struggled on the defensive end and got outscored 21-14 in the closing quarter to fall 70-56. “We talked about (guarding) a big three, but we knew that (Willson) Windhorst was another guy who could go off. At some point you have to pick your poison and he knocked down two big threes and we had to extend a little more. They’re just such a tough guard,” Springs Valley coach Jonathon Bowles said. “Fletcher (Cole), (Isaac Cornett-)McBride, and (Trey) Rominger are all really good basketball players and then Willson Windhorst showed tonight that he’s a heck of a basketball player too and we knew that could happen.” Even though Springs Valley ended up losing the game, Bowles was able to find a number of things that he liked about his team’s performance. Recently the Blackhawks have stressed getting better at the free-throw line and they did just that against Paoli, hitting 10 of 12 foul shots. They also limited themselves to 10 turnovers and went toe-to-toe with the Rams on the boards. Another positive was the way the Blackhawks scored, putting up 56 points against a Paoli team that had only allowed 43 points per game in its first 11 games. “They play really good defense, so for us to get 56 tonight, I was really proud of that,” Bowles said. “Deion (Edwards) had 16 points and they were 16 hard points, Larron Childers is playing some good basketball right now and he ended up with 14 points, Mav Land is starting to come into his own and shoot the basketball really well. I just felt like a lot of guys played really well tonight.” Land’s performance — he tied his career high for made 3-pointers in a game with four to score 12 points — is just the latest in a string of strong play for the sharpshooter. He scored nine and 10 points against West Washington and Shoals last weekend respectively, combining to make five of his 13 3-point attempts. That’s a promising sign for a Springs Valley offense that can use some more spacing to its advantage. “It’s huge. Konner (Chase) struggled to score a little bit tonight and a lot of the credit to that goes to Paoli, but Mav’s shooting opens up driving lanes for Deion and Konner and guys like that. That’s what we’re going to need,” Bowles said. “Mav shot 50 percent from three last weekend, shot well again tonight, we just need him to keep bringing that consistency that he’s had for the last three or four games and if he does that’s going to help us a lot.” Springs Valley (5-9, 3-3 PLAC) finished its conference slate with the loss, likely ending up smackdab in the middle of a tough league with a .500 winning percentage. The Blackhawks will try to avoid one loss turning into two on Saturday as they host another rival, Northeast Dubois. In order to do that they'll have to build on what they did well against Paoli and improve on the rest of their game. “We’ll watch that film tomorrow and be able to point out the positives, what we did well, and then point out those five or six minutes where we had a letdown,” Bowles said. “The teams that are able to come out and win on Saturday night that’s what they do: when the sun comes up they forget about this and move on to the next one. Dubois is a good senior-led team so we’ll have to be ready to go.” PAOLI RAMS 70, SPRINGS VALLEY BLACKHAWKS 56 Paoli (9-3);10;19;20;21—70 Springs Valley (5-9);6;17;19;14—56