The visiting Indians and the homestanding Gladiators took turns tonight exchanging big scoring spurts but the Fort had the two that counted the most as they rallied from behind with an explosive 47-point second half to defeat Riverheads 66-56. That win avenges an earlier home court loss to the Gladiators, a trend that has been common in the Shenandoah this season, and more importantly, keeps the Indians just a game behind Wilson, which eased past Buffalo Gap 60-56 tonight. They are tied for second with Staunton which overwhelmed unpredictable Stuarts Draft tonight 55-31. With tonight's loss, Riverheads is now in sole possession of fourth place at 3-4 in district play.
I will be a little handicapped here tonight in terms of providing exact details for several reasons. First of all, the NFHS was its usual freeze em up self so I opted to watch on my cell phone. That somewhat gets the job done but it is hard to see who is scoring. Making that matter worse was the fact that our crackerjack PA announcer was out tonight and I was unable to rely on his expert documentation of each and every point scored. Last but not least, the News Virginian is still posting game reports one by one but as of the moment, this one is not up online. So I will only be able to give you my unofficial scoring.
With that in mind I will begin by telling you that shooting did not appear to be the Big Red's problem tonight. Unofficially I have four guys (Adam Painter-19, Bennett Dunlap-12, Tye Morris-11, and Ryan Farris-10) in double figures and those same four combined for a respectable nine three-pointers. But the Gladiators were done in by a whole boatload of turnovers, especially in the second half, and more than a few of them appeared to be unforced. So without reading Coach Coffey's take on the situation yet, I suspect he will name those miscues as being a major factor in the loss.
As for the Indians, not knowing their roster, and not having the PA guy, I can only go by a visual and it appeared to me that number 20 (Veney maybe???) was the main weapon tonight. I am pretty sure he knocked down at least five or six triples. Leading scorer Ryan Cook may very well have had his usual fine game but if so, it was not as evident to me, keeping in mind that it was all I could do to focus on the Gladiators' game.
The first of the scoring spurts came from RHS as the Gladiators threatened to make early mincemeat of the visitors, surging to an 8-0 lead less than 90 seconds into the game. But they went stone cold and Fort Surge Number One put the visitors ahead 10-9 after one period.
Again the Big Red opened strong, scoring the first 8 of the second period to move back in front 17-10. They padded the lead a bit and late in the quarter actually reached a double digit lead at 25-15. The Indians closed out the half by scoring the final four points but little did we know they were just getting started.
They came out of the gates strong to open the third, throwing full court pressure at Riverheads and knocking down every shot they took. All told they scored the first 12, making for 16 unanswered points as they turned their six point halftime deficit into a six point lead at 31-25.
It was then Riverheads' turn to surge again as they rallied back to take a 33-32 lead. Things then seesawed fairly evenly the rest of the quarter, which ended with the Fort on top 43-41 after scoring 24 points in the period.
A Painter triple opened the fourth quarter that gave Riverheads its last lead of the game. Veney and company then took over and soon the visitors had their largest advantage of the game at 59-48 as Riverheads continued to struggle with its ball-handling.
But just when it looked like the Indians might blow it wide open, Riverheads made one last push and closed to within four at 60-56 with just over a minute left. If I recall, Dunlap was a major factor in that final Gladiator surge. But the Big Red was then forced to foul and the Indians closed out the hard-fought win from the charity stripe.
The Fort JVs made it a clean sweep by winning the opener 36-26, but the news was all bad for Gladiator fans because up at Fort Defiance, you will be pleased to hear that "Beverly Hills" swept both girls games from the homestanding Indians. (I just read 'em folks, I don't explain 'em. You will have to ask the NFHS where that came from!) The varsity game was a 47-41 win for the visitors which may have come as somewhat of a surprise.
The final news I have for you here at this late hour, while we await media documentation of what I have reported, is that Riverheads will apparently be right back in action tomorrow afternoon but it will be varsity only. The boys will travel to Wilson for a 3:30 game and the girls will be at home entertaining the district-leading Lady Hornets. I am not sure of the tip-off time for that one.
I believe these games might have originally been on tap for either Monday or Tuesday and maybe the idea is to stay ahead of the snow and get them in early as opposed to having to worry about make up dates later. After all, as hard as it is to believe, this season that seems like it just got started is actually pretty close to being over, with football amazingly less than a month away.
I will be a little handicapped here tonight in terms of providing exact details for several reasons. First of all, the NFHS was its usual freeze em up self so I opted to watch on my cell phone. That somewhat gets the job done but it is hard to see who is scoring. Making that matter worse was the fact that our crackerjack PA announcer was out tonight and I was unable to rely on his expert documentation of each and every point scored. Last but not least, the News Virginian is still posting game reports one by one but as of the moment, this one is not up online. So I will only be able to give you my unofficial scoring.
With that in mind I will begin by telling you that shooting did not appear to be the Big Red's problem tonight. Unofficially I have four guys (Adam Painter-19, Bennett Dunlap-12, Tye Morris-11, and Ryan Farris-10) in double figures and those same four combined for a respectable nine three-pointers. But the Gladiators were done in by a whole boatload of turnovers, especially in the second half, and more than a few of them appeared to be unforced. So without reading Coach Coffey's take on the situation yet, I suspect he will name those miscues as being a major factor in the loss.
As for the Indians, not knowing their roster, and not having the PA guy, I can only go by a visual and it appeared to me that number 20 (Veney maybe???) was the main weapon tonight. I am pretty sure he knocked down at least five or six triples. Leading scorer Ryan Cook may very well have had his usual fine game but if so, it was not as evident to me, keeping in mind that it was all I could do to focus on the Gladiators' game.
The first of the scoring spurts came from RHS as the Gladiators threatened to make early mincemeat of the visitors, surging to an 8-0 lead less than 90 seconds into the game. But they went stone cold and Fort Surge Number One put the visitors ahead 10-9 after one period.
Again the Big Red opened strong, scoring the first 8 of the second period to move back in front 17-10. They padded the lead a bit and late in the quarter actually reached a double digit lead at 25-15. The Indians closed out the half by scoring the final four points but little did we know they were just getting started.
They came out of the gates strong to open the third, throwing full court pressure at Riverheads and knocking down every shot they took. All told they scored the first 12, making for 16 unanswered points as they turned their six point halftime deficit into a six point lead at 31-25.
It was then Riverheads' turn to surge again as they rallied back to take a 33-32 lead. Things then seesawed fairly evenly the rest of the quarter, which ended with the Fort on top 43-41 after scoring 24 points in the period.
A Painter triple opened the fourth quarter that gave Riverheads its last lead of the game. Veney and company then took over and soon the visitors had their largest advantage of the game at 59-48 as Riverheads continued to struggle with its ball-handling.
But just when it looked like the Indians might blow it wide open, Riverheads made one last push and closed to within four at 60-56 with just over a minute left. If I recall, Dunlap was a major factor in that final Gladiator surge. But the Big Red was then forced to foul and the Indians closed out the hard-fought win from the charity stripe.
The Fort JVs made it a clean sweep by winning the opener 36-26, but the news was all bad for Gladiator fans because up at Fort Defiance, you will be pleased to hear that "Beverly Hills" swept both girls games from the homestanding Indians. (I just read 'em folks, I don't explain 'em. You will have to ask the NFHS where that came from!) The varsity game was a 47-41 win for the visitors which may have come as somewhat of a surprise.
The final news I have for you here at this late hour, while we await media documentation of what I have reported, is that Riverheads will apparently be right back in action tomorrow afternoon but it will be varsity only. The boys will travel to Wilson for a 3:30 game and the girls will be at home entertaining the district-leading Lady Hornets. I am not sure of the tip-off time for that one.
I believe these games might have originally been on tap for either Monday or Tuesday and maybe the idea is to stay ahead of the snow and get them in early as opposed to having to worry about make up dates later. After all, as hard as it is to believe, this season that seems like it just got started is actually pretty close to being over, with football amazingly less than a month away.
