By my count, these two have played each other on the hardwood over 125 times in the last 60 years, but you would be hard-pressed to find a game that followed the same pattern as this one. For the first three quarters, the favored Wilson juggernaut performed exactly as advertised, as they completely dominated the Gladiators in every phase of the game and rolled to a 59-34 advantage. But if you jump ahead of me and do the math, you will see that Riverheads then came alive and outscored the visitors 30-10 in the fourth quarter to make it more respectable. MUCH more respectable in fact.
In all fairness to Wilson, no one ever felt as if they were in danger, and in fact the final basket for RHS dropped in just prior to the final buzzer. So for most of the fourth, the question seemed to be "would Riverheads be able to cut it down under 20?" and then "can they get it to 15?" Well then all of a sudden, it was a 9-point game at 65-56 but there was less than a minute to go. To their credit, the Big Red kept hustling and if there had been another minute left in the game....well we might be having a different discussion.....
Now some folks would argue that a loss is a loss and does it make any real difference how much the margin is? I don't see it that way and in fact I commend the Gladiators for not throwing in the towel and giving up, because some teams would have done that and lost by 40. Of course I have since learned that Waynesboro pulled off a shocker tonight and won at Fort Defiance, which leaves RHS as the only Shenandoah team without a district win. I was of course hoping that Waynesboro would be kind enough to stay winless tonight and then cooperate when the Gladiators visit the River City Tuesday. More on that later.
Anyway, having read the names Finn Irving and Josh Johnson so far this season I expected one or the other to pose the biggest problem for Riverheads. Well that turned out to be Mr. Irving. He is one of the most fundamentally-sound players I have seen in a long time and if there is a better player in the district for his size, I have not yet seen him. He is clearly the "man" for the Green and Gold.
However what I was not expecting was that Wilson has pretty good overall depth, with players such as Podgorski, Briseno, and Schatz contributing, along with Johnson of course. So for those first three all-Wilson quarters, they intimidated the Gladiators on defense by denying the passing lanes, leading to a lot of easy buckets, they crashed the boards on both ends, and on offense they displayed what TV analysts call "spurtability." In one first quarter sequence, Irving scored five points in about 20 seconds of clock time, and then in the second quarter, Johnson duplicated almost exactly the same feat.
As a result the visitors took a 40-20 lead into the locker room and as you have read above, the Gladiators did very little in the third quarter to make it look like it was going to get any better. But the games have four quarters and that gave the Big Red, and especially senior guard Ryan Farris, their opportunity to avoid an embarrassing loss and they did exactly that.
They turned the tables completely on the Hornets and became the aggressors in the game. Better yet, Farris and teammate Bennett Dunlap came alive from behind the arc and shot the lights out in that fourth quarter. I can't say for sure but I would guess that five of their seven combined triples came in that final stanza. In Farris' case, he had gone without any three-pointers through the Big Red's first five games of the season, but has now developed into a huge offensive threat. I have him for 30 tonight after hitting for 26 at Stuarts Draft on Tuesday.
The Gladiators also continued their balanced scoring as they have most of the season. Only five guys scored tonight but two of them (Dunlap and Tye Morris) joined Farris in double digits with 11 and 10 respectively and the Gladiators' version of a pogo stick (Levi Byer) was right behind them with 8, as he delivered another one of his rebounding clinics. Junior Carter Mooneyham came off the bench and gave Riverheads a decent game, scoring the team's remaining five points.
With the win, Wilson moves to 2-0 in league play and I am sure all eyes will be on their upcoming games with Buffalo Gap and Staunton, so we can start to determine who is REALLY the top team in the district. As for Riverheads, they are 0-3 in league play, but all three losses have been by single digits, two of those were on the road, and one went into overtime. So it is certainly not just my glass-half-full viewpoint that sees potential in this team. So you are hearing it here first...........they WILL win some games before the season is over that they might not be expected to win.
As mentioned above, tonight's Waynesboro win throws a monkey wrench into my plans for the Big Red's trip over there Tuesday night, where the Gladiators will begin a grueling stretch of six games in an eight-day period. Of course a lady by the name of Mother Nature may be planning to disrupt some of those games but we will cross those snowy bridges when we get to them.
Tonight's JV game was "somewhat" similar to the varsity, although nowhere near as close. Riverheads jumped out to a 14-0 first quarter lead as Wilson did not even dent the scoreboard until the five minute mark of the second quarter. The Gladiators led 24-5 at the break and were coasting along until a Hornet mini-rally trimmed the lead to 33-25. But RHS scored the final ten points of the game to win 43-25.
Will Gardner bombed away with five triples and Henley Dunlap was the main pickpocket for an aggressive Big Red defense that harassed the Hornets into a number of easy transition buckets. The Junior G'men are now 5-2 and even those two losses came by one point to Fort Defiance at the buzzer and in overtime at Stuarts Draft. Coach Snead and the troops are no doubt looking forward to seeing those two teams again when they make their visits to Greenville.
Best wishes to one and all in terms of this weekend's storm and we will see what impact it has on next week's games. Stay warm and safe, hopefully with limited power outages!!!!
In all fairness to Wilson, no one ever felt as if they were in danger, and in fact the final basket for RHS dropped in just prior to the final buzzer. So for most of the fourth, the question seemed to be "would Riverheads be able to cut it down under 20?" and then "can they get it to 15?" Well then all of a sudden, it was a 9-point game at 65-56 but there was less than a minute to go. To their credit, the Big Red kept hustling and if there had been another minute left in the game....well we might be having a different discussion.....
Now some folks would argue that a loss is a loss and does it make any real difference how much the margin is? I don't see it that way and in fact I commend the Gladiators for not throwing in the towel and giving up, because some teams would have done that and lost by 40. Of course I have since learned that Waynesboro pulled off a shocker tonight and won at Fort Defiance, which leaves RHS as the only Shenandoah team without a district win. I was of course hoping that Waynesboro would be kind enough to stay winless tonight and then cooperate when the Gladiators visit the River City Tuesday. More on that later.
Anyway, having read the names Finn Irving and Josh Johnson so far this season I expected one or the other to pose the biggest problem for Riverheads. Well that turned out to be Mr. Irving. He is one of the most fundamentally-sound players I have seen in a long time and if there is a better player in the district for his size, I have not yet seen him. He is clearly the "man" for the Green and Gold.
However what I was not expecting was that Wilson has pretty good overall depth, with players such as Podgorski, Briseno, and Schatz contributing, along with Johnson of course. So for those first three all-Wilson quarters, they intimidated the Gladiators on defense by denying the passing lanes, leading to a lot of easy buckets, they crashed the boards on both ends, and on offense they displayed what TV analysts call "spurtability." In one first quarter sequence, Irving scored five points in about 20 seconds of clock time, and then in the second quarter, Johnson duplicated almost exactly the same feat.
As a result the visitors took a 40-20 lead into the locker room and as you have read above, the Gladiators did very little in the third quarter to make it look like it was going to get any better. But the games have four quarters and that gave the Big Red, and especially senior guard Ryan Farris, their opportunity to avoid an embarrassing loss and they did exactly that.
They turned the tables completely on the Hornets and became the aggressors in the game. Better yet, Farris and teammate Bennett Dunlap came alive from behind the arc and shot the lights out in that fourth quarter. I can't say for sure but I would guess that five of their seven combined triples came in that final stanza. In Farris' case, he had gone without any three-pointers through the Big Red's first five games of the season, but has now developed into a huge offensive threat. I have him for 30 tonight after hitting for 26 at Stuarts Draft on Tuesday.
The Gladiators also continued their balanced scoring as they have most of the season. Only five guys scored tonight but two of them (Dunlap and Tye Morris) joined Farris in double digits with 11 and 10 respectively and the Gladiators' version of a pogo stick (Levi Byer) was right behind them with 8, as he delivered another one of his rebounding clinics. Junior Carter Mooneyham came off the bench and gave Riverheads a decent game, scoring the team's remaining five points.
With the win, Wilson moves to 2-0 in league play and I am sure all eyes will be on their upcoming games with Buffalo Gap and Staunton, so we can start to determine who is REALLY the top team in the district. As for Riverheads, they are 0-3 in league play, but all three losses have been by single digits, two of those were on the road, and one went into overtime. So it is certainly not just my glass-half-full viewpoint that sees potential in this team. So you are hearing it here first...........they WILL win some games before the season is over that they might not be expected to win.
As mentioned above, tonight's Waynesboro win throws a monkey wrench into my plans for the Big Red's trip over there Tuesday night, where the Gladiators will begin a grueling stretch of six games in an eight-day period. Of course a lady by the name of Mother Nature may be planning to disrupt some of those games but we will cross those snowy bridges when we get to them.
Tonight's JV game was "somewhat" similar to the varsity, although nowhere near as close. Riverheads jumped out to a 14-0 first quarter lead as Wilson did not even dent the scoreboard until the five minute mark of the second quarter. The Gladiators led 24-5 at the break and were coasting along until a Hornet mini-rally trimmed the lead to 33-25. But RHS scored the final ten points of the game to win 43-25.
Will Gardner bombed away with five triples and Henley Dunlap was the main pickpocket for an aggressive Big Red defense that harassed the Hornets into a number of easy transition buckets. The Junior G'men are now 5-2 and even those two losses came by one point to Fort Defiance at the buzzer and in overtime at Stuarts Draft. Coach Snead and the troops are no doubt looking forward to seeing those two teams again when they make their visits to Greenville.
Best wishes to one and all in terms of this weekend's storm and we will see what impact it has on next week's games. Stay warm and safe, hopefully with limited power outages!!!!
