Honaker's Carey Keene goes up for a shot as Virginia High's Charli Carpenter defends.
Tim Hayes
BRISTOL, Va. - Virginia High's Kevin Timmons and Misty Davis Miller of Honaker coached their respective girls basketball teams against each other in a Ballard Lee Invitational game on Friday at the Bearcat Den.
A little more than a mile away on Moore Street, a place that meant a lot in the lives of both - the campus of Virginia Intermont College - lay smoldering and in ruin.
A fire that occurred in the wee hours of Friday morning destroyed a few structures on the vacated campus, including Main Hall, which had long been a Bristol landmark.
Timmons spent two seasons as an assistant men's basketball coach at VI, which happened to be the final years the college was in operation. It closed in 2014 amid financial woes.
"I was outside at 1:30 this morning when it was in flames," Timmons said. "It sparked my day in a bad way. That's where me and my wife fell in love. [Former VI and current Emory & Henry University women's basketball coach Jaclyn Dickens] posted something about a place that gave us so many good, positive people and memories. It's heartbreaking to see it go down like that."
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Miller was a star point guard at VI from 1997-2000 and impressively directed the offense when the Cobras reached the NAIA national tournament in 1999.
"Oh, I was heartbroken this morning to look at the news and see that," Miller said. "It was gut-wrenching. A lot of good memories there and a lot of great girls I got to play with there. It was definitely a sad feeling to see the place going up in flames."
Timmons and Miller are among the many coaches in the area with ties to Virginia Intermont and in their matchup on Friday, Miller's Honaker Tigers collected a 42-21 victory over the Timmons-led Virginia High Bearcats.
Honaker (4-1) shot just 16-for-52 from the field, but still won handily. How so?
"I preach to the girls all the time about defense and rebounding and tonight proves that," Miller said. "You're not always going to have a hot night offensively. We've been shooting really well and have evenly scored across the board, but tonight it seemed like everybody had an off night. A very low shooting percentage. We got it done but I feel it was on the defensive end for sure."
In a game where neither team had a player score in double digits, junior Carey Keene of Honaker stood out as she collected four steals to go along with her eight points and four rebounds.
Virginia High (1-4) committed 30 turnovers.
"Once you get that first turnover," Keene said. "It's kind of like you just get that fire, and you can go from there."
Keene is in her second season at Honaker after transferring from Lebanon.
"Last year ... I was definitely finding my way, finding my fit," Keene said. "This year I feel like I am picking up where I left off last year."
Alayna McNulty scored a team-high nine points and yanked down five rebounds for Honaker. Freshman Julianna Farmer, senior Kalli Miller and freshman Dani Whaley each scored seven points.
"I feel we've got a good mix of experienced players with some talented new players coming in," Misty Davis Miller said. "We have what it takes to be a great team, we've just got to keep working on fundamentals and making sure we're doing the little things right. We want to keep building on our defense and just keep meshing and getting that team chemistry on the floor."
With the contest knotted 8-8 in the opening quarter, Honaker reeled off a 25-3 run that bridged the end of the first half and start of the third quarter.
"We'd get in a lull and go several minutes not scoring and then we'd get some transition buckets and that would get us going again," Miller said. "Defense and running the floor is what we did well."
Virginia High missed 21 of its 27 shots from the field to go along with its ball-handling gaffes. After Sarah Page sank a 3 with 3:08 remaining in the first half, the Bearcats wouldn't make another field goal until Kaiden Harris converted a layup with 7:20 left in the game.
"You can't win ballgames like that, especially when you turn the ball over 30 times," Timmons said. "You turn the ball over 30 times and they score on a 1/3 of them you lose by 20. Simple as that and that's the math. Honaker did a great job of turning us over and using their length."
Honaker was supposed to play George Wythe on Friday but the Maroons didn't make it to Bristol due to the weather forecast calling for wintry weather. Honaker and GW will play today at 7 p.m, instead.
HONAKER (42) - McNulty 2 4-6 9, C. Keene 3-8 0-0 8, Miller 3-11 0-0 7, Whaley 3-9 1-2 7, Rose 1-3 0-0 2, Musick 0-1 0-0 0, Campbell 0-1 0-0 0, Farmer 3-8 0-2 7, A. Keene 1 0-0 2. Totals 16 5-10 42.
VIRGINIA HIGH (21) - Page 2 2-2 7, Carpenter 0 0-0 0, Harris 1 0-0 2, Jarvis 2 0-0 6, Davis 1 3-6 5, Arnold 0 1-2 1, Belcher 0 0-0 0, Bishop 0 0-0 0, McCloud 0 0-0 0, Valles 0 0-0 0, Mutter 0 0-0 0. Totals 6 6-10 21.
Honaker 16 8 11 7 -- 42
Virginia High 8 3 6 4 -- 21
3-point goals - Honaker 5 (C. Keene 2, McNulty, Miller, Farmer), VHS 3 (Jarvis 2, Page). Total fouls - Honaker 14, VHS 10. Fouled out - none. Technicals - none.
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