East Hamilton’s senior guard duo of Peyton Harris and Myles Willingham put on their best “Splash Brothers” impression Saturday night, when their lights-out shooting from beyond the arc propelled the Hurricanes to an utterly dominant 71-45 home win over Rhea County in a TSSAA Region 3-4A quarterfinal.
With senior Josiah Wiley carving through the Golden Eagles’ defense, the Hurricanes’ star point guard kicked the ball out to Willingham, who faked a defender off the ground and side-stepped to drain his fifth and final 3-pointer — further igniting an already fired-up deep home student section right behind him.
Willingham’s long-range splash provided a 46-25 lead with 4:50 left in the third quarter as he had already supplied his game-high 18 points.
“Shout-out to my teammates,” Willingham said. “They give me the green light, and so does my coach. Coach (Howard) Pride makes a lot of plays for us to shoot the ball, and Josiah can really set up the flow of our offense. When my team gives me energy, I can catch fire.”
East Hamilton’s top two shooters matched one another as Harris drilled three of his five 3-pointers in the team’s 23-point third quarter.