Quickness was the big difference in this one. Page just seemed to telegraph Gladiator passes repeatedly to create scoring opportunities and kept Riverheads off balance all night.
However, the Panthers were not perfect by any stretch, and the sloppiness that dwcherb mentioned resulted in a number of scoring droughts for both teams. For example, neither one could find the range in the early going as the clock was almost down to 5:00 before Graham Cash dropped in an inside bucket to get things going. He added a fast-break layup seconds later to give RHS an early 4-0 lead, before Page finally scored at the 4 minute mark. The teams then traded buckets until Brett Hostetler came off the bench and immediately drilled a triple to put RHS ahead 11-10 at the first break.
His fellow sophomore Harrison Schaefer scored the first RHS bucket in the second quarter, but Page responded with 10 of the quickest points you will ever see to take a 20-13 lead with just under six minutes left in the half. Then came another mutual scoring slump as the teams must have traded 15 possessions before Zach Roberts hit a foul shot and followed it up with an inside bucket to bring RHS back to within four. Page then added two foul shots to wrap up the first half at 22-16.
As dwcherb mentioned, the Panthers broke it open in the third quarter with a combination of increased defensive pressure and timely three-point shooting, but not before the teams opened up the quarter with another two minutes of empty possessions. But once Parker hit the first trey for PCHS, they outscored the visitors 20-10 in that stanza to lead 42-26 going into the fourth. At that point, the real question was whether Page would REALLY break it open and win by 25-30 or would the Gladiators battle back to make it more respectable.
Well we sort of got a little bit of both. Page dominated the first half of the fourth to move out to their biggest lead at 56-36. The Gladiators then kept hustling and finished on a 9-2 run that included Hostetler's second three of the night and a coast-to-coast, wide open, he-wouldn't-really-try-to-dunk-it-would-he lay-up just ahead of the buzzer by the Big Red's 6'2" Jared Farley.
The Gladiators were somewhat hampered by the fact that their two quickest players, Cash and Ben Agnor, each had three fouls by halftime, which limited their aggressiveness against the Page pressure. To their credit, neither fouled out and Cash in fact led the scoring for RHS with 14. Hostetler, who has really come along in recent games, finished with 10 and Roberts added 8.
Page won the JV game 49-30, although the quality of play was hampered by one especially inept referee. For one thing, the first three fouls of the game were called against Page, only to see Riverheads whistled for the next TWELVE. There were at least three occasions in which the two refs had to consult one another about a call.
But the strangest blunder of them all came late in the second quarter. It was the classic block/charge situation. Mr. This-is-My-First-Game blew his whistle and initially signaled a charge on Riverheads. That alone would not have been so bad, and for that matter might have even been the correct call. But the problem was that he clearly reported the foul to the scorer's table as being on the wrong guy. It had been so obvious who the RHS player was, but this guy would not change it, no matter how much the RHS staff protested that he had the wrong guy. For his final act of "I'm in charge here", he walked to the scorer's table and emphatically gave the block sign, followed by the hand behind the head charge sign.
We can only conclude that to mean that the Riverheads (offensive) player, the wrong one mind you, charged and then also blocked on the play, which had to be a first for basketball. This guy did not make the difference in the game because Page was the better team, but it does make you cringe to see someone out there who is just not ready.
The Gladiators are back in action tomorrow night with another road trip to East Rock, while the big attraction at Page will be a make-up girls' game against Luray. I suspect those attract as much attention as the boys' rivalry does.
This post was edited on 1/27 10:35 PM by longtimerhsfan