East Limestone is a team that prides itself on its defense, so the Indians were humbled a little bit last week when West Limestone scored 69 points in an 11-point win.

Coach Fred Steger and the East players were determined not to let that happen again, and made amends for that loss by stifling West Limestone’s top scorer River Helms in a 45-31 win over the Wildcats Thursday in the semifinals of the Limestone County Tournament.

Helms, who scored 25 points in West’s 69-58 win last Friday, was held to just five points thanks to the outstanding defense of Xavier Griffith.

Griffith hounded Helms the whole game, forcing the Wildcats’ post player into tough shot after tough shot.

“We worked on (defense) the whole week (since last Friday’s loss),” Griffith said. “After (Helms) scored a game-high 25 points last time, we said we weren’t going to let that happen again. Our intensity and focus was A1 the whole time at practice after Friday.”

Steger said East played Thursday’s game with a defensive effort that wasn’t there last Friday.

“Defense is what we really hang our hat on, and last week it seemed like we were really out of position,” Steger said. “Our footwork was bad, our closeouts were bad. We were really focused on how we would play tonight.”

Steger said stopping Helms was a huge part of the game plan, and gave Griffith a lot of credit for his defensive effort.

“(Helms) is a good offensive player, and (Griffith) really made him work hard. He did a good job of staying in front of him and making sure he took tough shots. He’s a good player, and you’ve got to be able to wear him down and make him take tough shots. We did a good job against him tonight.”

Griffith wasn’t just a defensive presence. He also led East Limestone in scoring and rebounding, tallying 21 points and grabbing 11 boards.

Griffith was a key player for the Indians in the first half, as fellow senior standout Austin Harvell sat the final 12 minutes of the first half with foul trouble.

Despite Harvell only playing four minutes in the first half, East Limestone still had an 18-16 halftime lead.

“We just had to take a deep breath with Austin sitting out,” Steger said. “We practice a lot with one of them being out, in case they do get in foul trouble. It was just about understanding how to execute and knowing where we needed to take our time and get high-percentage shots.”

East started fast in the the third quarter, and jumped out to a 24-18 lead in the first 2:24. But West recovered, and a Camryn Williams 3-pointer cut the Indians lead to 26-23 late in the quarter. However, from that point on it was all East. The Indians went on a 19-3 run over a five-minute period to put the game out of reach.

Griffith and Harvell combined for 16 of those points, as the two used their height advantage to dominate inside against the smaller Wildcat defenders.

“That was our game plan,” Griffith said. “We were going old school two-man game the whole time. And once we get it in the paint, there’s no stopping us.”

Harvell added 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Indians, while Williams scored 15 points to lead West Limestone.

Top-seeded East Limestone will play in the tournament championship game at 5 p.m. today.

East played in the championship game last year, but lost a two-point decision to Tanner. The Indians are looking for their first county championship since 2016.

“We’re coming for the championship this year,” Griffith said. “We want to win it all.”