Buffalo Gap 59 Riverheads 56 nm

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For those of you who have been following my ongoing saga with Buffalo Gap, you will be pleased, or maybe just amused, to hear that my tongue-in-cheek reverse psychology prediction almost worked tonight as Riverheads roared back from a 13 point deficit and had the Bison on the ropes, at least for a brief period, before the combination of outstanding foul shooting and offensive rebounding allowed the home team to squeak out the win. So apparently on this night at least, the Gap decided that winning the game was more important than making me guess wrong.

In addition to the factors already mentioned, the Gladiators suffered because their usually-proficient three-point shooting abandoned them in the first half, plus they were in foul trouble just about all night. In fact three guys eventually fouled out for the Big Red and when you only have a ten-man squad, that can make things a little tense. With the loss, RHS is now 9-4 on the season but the four losses have come by a total of 14 points and in all four cases, they had the lead at some point in the fourth quarter but could not put the game away.

The Bison started off strong in this one, taking an early 12-4 lead and a 15-7 advantage into the second quarter. Riverheads was trying to establish its outside game but went about 0 for 5 in that first period. One especially agonizing shot went three quarters of the way down into the cylinder before spinning around and back out. Meanwhile Tanner Rivenburg and Andrew Weatherman were lighting it up for the Bison in the early going.

BG continued to pour it on in the second quarter as they took a series of 13-point leads, the last one at 29-16. Riverheads then closed the gap to single digits by scoring the last five of the half and trailed only 29-21 at the break, despite having no baskets from behind the arc. That little spurt gave the team some juice heading into the locker room and you just had a hunch that the visitors had a run left in them.

That run was slow to develop as the Gladiators were only able to shave two points off the deficit in the third quarter, which ended 43-37. But they scored the first two buckets of the fourth to make it 43-41 and the sizable visiting crowd that decided to brave the rain and fog instead of making the easier girls' trip to Riverheads started to make a little noise. The Bison stemmed the tide momentarily with a triple but Adam Painter was fouled on an attempted three and calmly nailed all of them, and moments later big brother Grant converted an old-fashioned to give Riverheads its first lead of the night at 47-46.

Speaking of Adam, hopefully tonight's game is an indication that he has regained his shooting touch. He had been in a slump lately after hitting six treys in one game this year, but tonight during the Riverheads rally, he nailed two of them to help get the Big Red back in the game. Also senior Zach Adams came alive in the second half, making some aggressive inside moves and was also clearly the emotional leader behind the Pride's late surge.

But if there was one sequence that really got the Gladiator fans fired up, it came soon after Grant's three point play. The Bison were attacking the lane when Honor Robinson, the Big Red's 6'5" senior center, went up with the shooter and simply took the ball away from him in mid-flight. The Gladiators then raced downcourt and Robinson somehow ended up on the receiving end of a fast break lay up to give RHS a three point lead.

The Bison scored to cut it to 49-48 before a Grant Painter stick back gave the Gladiators a second three-point cushion as the clock ticked down to the two minute mark. But from that point on, whether it was by design or just because he is the obvious team leader for the Bison, Weston Smith essentially took over the game and willed the home team to victory. They outscored RHS 11-5 down the stretch, mainly by drawing fouls against the Big Red but also by Smith getting outstanding position and grabbing what seemed like a half dozen offensive boards all by himself in those final two minutes. His hustle play was most definitely another key to the Bison win and I get the idea it has been that way most of the season for the Gap, which notched its 12th win of the season tonight.

Each team was led by a three-pronged scoring attack. Rivenburg and Weatherman combined for about 34 to lead the Bison and Smith added either 13 or 14, most of them coming late in the game. For Riverheads, Grant Painter led all scorers with 20 while the accounting firm of Adam and Adams scored 14 each.

So another in a long series of donnybrooks between these two is in the books. They will meet again at Riverheads toward the end of the season but will go their separate ways for playoff action as there is no district tournament and they compete in different regional classifications. Of course the Gladiators' immediate task is to figure out how to handle Tuesday night's trip to Stuarts Draft, where the Cougars finally scored 100 tonight against Staunton, as I believe "someone" predicted that they might. We will talk more about that upcoming neighborhood tussle, as well as BG's game with Fort Defiance, after we all dry out on Monday.

Tonight's JV game was also a highly-competitive and very entertaining affair in which you got the idea that each team played just about its best game of the season. Riverheads came out strong and threatened to blow the Bison out of their own gym, with an 8-0 burst to open the game. But the Bison warmed up and came back to take a one-point halftime lead. Each team enjoyed scoring spurts in the second half with neither ever establishing complete control of the game. Finally the Bison prevailed 58-52, giving us yet another re-match to look forward to when the teams collide in Greenville down the road.