Shane Thomas | The Valdosta Daily TimesValwood guard Nate Williams (4) drives to the basket against Terrell Academy guard Matthew Todd (30) during the second half of a game Thursday at Eager Sports Center. Williams led the Valiants with 29 points in the team's 75-45 loss to the Eagles.

HAHIRA – The visiting Terrell Academy Eagles found the rims friendly inside Eager Sports Center Thursday night.

The Eagles’ sizzling shooting powered them to a 75-45 win over the Valwood Valiants (3-1) as the trio of Nick Chambless, Hayden Crosson and Logan Todd combined for 58 points.

Chambless led the Eagles with 20 points – 10 of which came in the first quarter. Crosson and Todd poured in 19 points apiece as the Eagles improved to 4-0 on the season. Each of the Eagles’ first four victories have come by at least 29 points as the team is winning by an average of 35.5 points per game.

“We did a lot of little things that we hadn’t been doing incorrectly,” Valwood head coach Andy Stamschror said. “We kind of let things slide a little bit. They came out, they shot the ball well – they were draining everything there for a little while and we couldn’t buy a bucket. We couldn’t make layups. When they’re playing a zone, we’ve got to hit the outside shot to beat the zone and we didn’t knock down the outside shot. We only made (three) 3s and the shots that had been falling weren’t falling tonight.”

Valwood senior Nate Williams scored 16 of his game-high 29 points in the second half, but no other Valiant reached double figures on Thursday. Ethan Owens added nine points for the Valiants in the loss.

The Valiants trailed 57-35 through three quarters and fell down by as many as 32 late in the fourth as they lost for the first time this season.

The game didn’t start well for the Valiants as the Eagles jumped out to a 16-4 lead in the first quarter before Stamschror called timeout to try to quell the Eagles’ momentum.

With time ticking down at the end of the first quarter, Chambless rose up and buried a 3-pointer right in front of the Valiants’ bench to beat the buzzer and put his team ahead 24-9 after one quarter.

Playing against the Eagles’ zone defense, the Valiants rushed shots and forced the issue early as they began to fall behind. By the time the Valiants found their bearings, the advantage was firmly in the talons of the Eagles.

“We forced up some shots that we missed and they fed off of it and got some fast break points and built some confidence and they just kind of ran with it from there,” Stamschror said.

The Valiants would get no closer than 11 the rest of the night as the Eagles buried a triple to go in front by 20, 34-14 with 3:26 left in the second quarter.

Following a floater by Owens, the Eagles ended the second quarter almost identically to the first as Todd got open underneath and scored on a layup just before the buzzer sounded to take a 38-24 lead at the half.

Defensively, the Valiants mixed in some zone defense as well as some aggressive trapping to get the ball out of Chambless’s hands in the second half. Despite some loose play with the ball and occasional errant passes, the Eagles began to patiently move the ball into open pockets in the Valiants’ defense and then made the extra pass for easy baskets.

Without the benefit of shotmaking to give themselves energy on the defensive end, the Valiants could never make a dent in the Eagles’ lead.

“Any time the shot’s not falling, it’s hard to keep the intensity up on defense,” Stamschror said. “You want the shots to fall so you can build that confidence and gain that momentum, and it was tough. When you’re missing layups and missing open jump shots, it’s tough to keep any momentum going. Terrell played hard. Terrell knocked down the shots that they needed to knock down and they did a better job tonight.”

UP NEXT

Valwood goes on the road for its next two games as they visit Westwood Friday night, followed by Southwest Georgia Academy Dec. 16.

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.