A Braeson Fulton stickback at the first quarter horn gave RHS the lead for good tonight as they held on for this nail-biting win, thanks largely to a turnover-filled 7 minute drought for Stuarts Draft. The Cougars then came back twice in the fourth quarter to tie the score but could never re-gain the lead as the Gladiators held on for the victory.
Jonathan White got the Cougars off to a nice start with two triples that were soooooo perfect the net hardly moved, so initially it looked like it would be business as usual for the Draft, a team that bombed in 22 treys and scored 115 points up at Luray just two nights ago. They moved out to an 11-4 lead, with Fulton hitting a three from the corner to get the Gladiators started on the way back. His shot to end the quarter gave him 9 at that point and put Riverheads ahead 17-15.
The second quarter was then a nightmare for the visitors and proved to be the difference in the game. They threw the ball away on their first five or six possessions and when they did manage to get a shot off, they had lost their touch. Fulton likewise cooled off for Riverheads but Bradley Roberts and Drew Bond, who would ultimately lead Riverheads' scoring with 13 each, came alive as the Big Red repeatedly beat the Cougar pressure for lay-ups. The score ballooned to 29-15 before the Draft could score again, as nobody on either side could believe what they were seeing. The Gladiators took their largest lead of the night at 33-17 and settled for a 35-21 halftime advantage.
SD roared out of the locker room determined to get back in the game and they made up almost all of the deficit with a 27-point third quarter. Riverheads was still attacking and scoring enough to hold on to the lead, but it shrank to only 3 points (51-48) by the end of the period.
Although SD clearly had the momentum, it was Riverheads that scored the first four points of the fourth quarter to take a 7-point advantage. In fact they held three seven-point leads, the last being at 59-52, before the Cougars made one last surge.
They scored seven straight points and the sizable Draft fan section tore the roof off their side of the gym when a triple by big Taylor Reed tied the score with about 1:30 left in the game. Riverheads however did not panic as they found Bond free for a lay-up to re-take the lead.
With RHS leading 61-59, both sides started to wonder if maybe the game was going to end with SD hitting one of their famous triples to win by a point or two. Instead they only managed to tie it at 61, with just under a minute to go, and RHS scored the final four after that, helped along by one final game-saving play by the talented freshman Fulton.
With the score still tied at 61, the Cougars had him trapped at the Riverheads end of the floor between the circles and they were on the verge of stealing the ball and possibly taking it in for a game-winning score. Instead, Fulton managed to get just enough control of the ball from down on the floor to scoot it toward his own basket, where Brett Hostetler picked it up and laid it softly over the edge of the rim for a 63-61 lead.
Everyone knew that the Cougars were still plenty capable of pulling this one out with one of their threes, but they missed one more time and had no choice but to foul Roberts. RHS had not been doing an especially good job at the foul line down the stretch, but just when they needed them the most, the junior (who also hit his first triple of the year tonight) calmly stripped the net on both shots with 22 seconds left to give the Big Red the hard-earned victory. The Cougars missed one final shot with about 13 seconds left and oddly did not foul any more as the game ended with RHS running out the clock in the neighborhood of half-court.
Riverheads won this game with virtually an all-guard line-up as big men Austin Craft and Forrest Shuey saw very little action and neither scored in the game. That proved to be the perfect strategy for this particular game as the Gladiators needed every sure-handed dribbler and shooter they could get to offset SD's relentless full-court pressure. It also helped a great deal that Tuesday's game was postponed, giving RHS plenty of time to prepare both mentally and physically for the tempo that SD forces you to play.
Each team had balanced scoring and in fact, how is this for a really weird quirk? The game was played on Friday the 13th and each team was led by a pair of 13-point scorers. We might want to call those Guinness guys about that particular statistic!
In addition to Bond and Roberts leading the way for RHS, Fulton was right behind with 12, Grant Painter added 10, and Hostetler almost gave RHS a fifth double-digit scorer with 8. A rapidly-improving Avery Schaefer added 6, and Elijah Dunlap hit one of the Big Red's four triples to round out the scoring. I know that White was one of the Draft players with 13, but I am not sure who the other was.
The spine-tingling win more than makes up for RHS losing three tough games last week, including an 85-68 setback at Stuarts Draft and an overtime heartbreaker at Wilson. RHS is now 5-5 on the season and has a busy four-game schedule next week. On paper, they would appear to have at least a chance to win all four of those, but let's not go there. Instead they will focus on preparing for Stonewall Jackson, which comes to Greenville on Monday night to make up Tuesday's snowed-out game.
SD won the JV game tonight 59-39. Riverheads stayed in striking distance for a while before the pressure took over as the Cougar Cubs play that same style of game as the varsity.
