By JONATHAN GREENE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD — The Bland County Bears have taken their fair share of lumps the past two seasons with a young, but talented players.
Now, those same players have experience to go along with that talent and the Bears are beginning to reach their full potential.
Bland County is off to a 6-3 start and junior Asher Dillow has been a big reason for it.
Dillow has scored 56 points in the Bears last two games — a win over Tazewell and loss to Floyd County — which has earned him this week’s Pocahontas Coal Association/ Bluefield Daily Telegraph Player of the Week honors.
“Good coaching and good teamwork,” Dillow said. “We executed our plays well. “A lot of my shots came off screens from my teammates. It was just a good job by everybody. I just try to be were the ball’s at.”
Dillow hasn’t just done it with his shooting. The 5-foot-8 guard has grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out 12 assists in those two games as well.
“He’s all over the floor defensively and offensively for us,” Bland County head coach Rich Hankins said. “We depend on him to facilitate our offense and he has the ball in his hands 95 percent of the time. He can score with the basketball and put others in position to score as well.”
Those points, rebounds and assists haven’t come easy for Dillow either as he’s been playing with a bone chip in his left knee.
“That’s causing him some pain,” Hankins said. “At the same time, he’s still going out there busting his butt and making us better. He’s just a warrior on the floor for us.”
Dillow added, “I don’t think about it. Mind over matter. We ice it and I wear a brace. I’ve had some physical therapy on a stationary bike and it’s improved a lot.”
Hankins says Dillow brings a “toughness” to the floor every game and “hates to lose.”
“I just hate it,” Dillow said. “I can’t stand to lose. I don’t care if it’s in practice or on the Playstation. I guess that might make me a sore loser, but I hate to lose at anything.”
Hankins added, “he just hates to lose especially if that game is close and it comes down to the final shot. Asher is more than willing to take that shot and pull the victory out for us. Overall, our kids gain confidence from having him on the floor.”
Dillow is scoring close to 20 points a game this year including a 32-point performance in Bland County’s win over Tazewell.
With Dillow on the floor, Bland County has plenty of confidence and why shouldn’t they. Two of their three losses have come to Floyd County — the last by two points — which is currently 9-0. Their other loss was by three points to Tazewell to open the season.
“I think we’re doing pretty well,” Dillow said. “I would of liked to have won that game at home which we lost by two. But, Floyd County is undefeated and they’ve beat another good team in Radford. That win would of looked nice though.
“Other than that, we’ve been playing well as a team and everything has been going good.”
“Going good” is a change from the past two seasons when Dillow and fellow juniors Darryl Clark, Chase Hankins and John Robert Miller were part of an inexperienced squad who suffered more defeats than wins.
“It was really hard and very frustrating,” Dillow said. “Everyone was always bigger, faster and stronger. We just had to wait it out.
“Now it’s our turn. Hopefully, it will all pay off.”
Hankins commented, “We feel like the work is starting to pay off for us. We’ve been hit by the injury bug, but we like our chances going into our district play.”
As does Dillow who thinks the Bears can be very dangerous.
“That’s going to depend on one thing — defense,” he said. “We’re a good shooting team. One of our biggest concerns was if we were going to have an inside presence, but our big guys have stepped up.
“John Miller took three charges against Tazewell which really helped us. If we play good defense and play hard like I know we can, we’re going to be tough down the stretch.”
Dillow and the Bears will look to erase the lost to Floyd County tonight when they host Rural Retreat at Rocky Gap High School in their last game before the new year.
“Hopefully, we’ll get some momentum back against Rural Retreat and head into the new year on a positive note,” Hankins said. “We should be a very confident bunch going into district play.”
— Contact Jonathan Greene
at jgreene@bdtonline.com
Honorable Mention
Bland (1-1): Chase Hankins 14 pts, 7 reb vs. Floyd Co.; Darryl Clark 16 pts vs. Floyd Co.
Bluefield (2-0 last week): Lykel Collier 27 points, 15 assists, 4 steals; K.J. Manns, 26 points including 19 pointss, 15 rebounds vs. River View; Anthony Eades, 50 pts.
Mercer Christian (0-1): Jonathan Easter, 11 points.
Mount View (0-1): Maurice Brown, 14 points, 12 rebounds; Teddy Hazzard, 9 points, 7 rebounds; Ishmyle Sawyers, 10 points; Tashaan Vineyard, 9 points.
PikeView (1-0): Will Webster, 37 points, 5 assists vs. Man; David Keen, 13 points; Cory Peyton, 12 points, 13 rebounds.
Pipestem Christian (1-0): Aleks Lane, 25 points, 10 rebounds vs. Mercer Christian.
Princeton (0-1): David Brewster 9 points; Hunter Walters 7 points.
Richlands (0-1): Ben Brown, 12 points; Eric Harris, 11 points.
River View (0-1): Zach DeHaven 14 points.
Summers County (1-1): T.J Smith, 41 points; Josh Graham, 28 points including 17 points, 8 rebounds in win over Meadow Bridge; Scott Hannah, 14 points vs. Meadow Bridge.
Twin Valley (1-0): Shannon Adams 11 points.
Wyoming East (1-0): Marcus Schofield, 23 points; Luke Campbell, 17 points; Taylor Smith, 14 points, 9 rebounds.