Everyone pretty much knew what would happen tonight as the Eagles are just too tall, too deep, and too talented for the Gladiators or anybody else in the Shenandoah District this year. I doubt if this was anywhere close to their best performance of the year, but they still have to be on everybody's list to make it at least to the Final Four in March.
If there was a surprise about the Eagles tonight, it was seeing just how deep they really are. From all the stories we have read this year, if Jefferson is not the man on any given night, then Nickel is. But tonight, although I did not stick around to hear the official scoring, I would certainly think that junior guard Tyce McNair was the leading scorer, and senior Griffin Morris also had a nice game. With that kind of balance they will be a tough out for anybody the rest of the way.
Riverheads was short-handed tonight by one man but they did not back down. They were willing to at least try and challenge the Eagles inside and they got 18 points out of the Painter brothers to lead their scoring, as sophomore Adam was pressed into more minutes due to the absence of Josh Kinzel. Each Painter brother knocked down a pair of triples and fortunately Gladiator fans will have each of them around again next year.
If you want to put the most positive spin you can on this game from a Riverheads perspective, it would be that we are through with the Eagles, at least for the regular season, and that we are 6-4 at the halfway point of our football-delayed schedule. The remaining ten games will all be played either at home or reasonably close and on paper, all ten of them are "winnable" games.
In fact the Gladiators' schedule took a turn for the better today when a final decision was made about the Rock the Ribbon classic down in Lexington. As mentioned earlier today in another thread, the Saturday part of that event is now canceled for THIS Saturday due to the impending snowstorm. So the teams that would have played then are exploring their options to see if they are available on the new date of the 26th.
Riverheads was already heavily booked around that time so they got creative and came with a nice solution, based on the word in the stands. We will verify this as the time gets closer, but my understanding is that RHS will now play Luray at the Rock the Ribbon, presumably in their designated 4:00 time slot, and the Parry McCluer game (which "technically" would have been a Riverheads home game) will now actually be played at Riverheads, and I believe the date I heard was February 1. There will also be shuffling of JV games but we won't go into that now.
Speaking of JV games, tonight's game saw Riverheads get off to a very slow start and trail by double digits for most of the first half. Ryan Farris then led a spirited second-half comeback that brought the Gladiators back to within three points and gave them chances to tie the game. But East Rock held on to win 32-26, despite the fact that they only scored three points in the fourth quarter, and those all came on foul shots in the last 20 seconds of the game while they were trying to fend off the Gladiator rally.
Due to Saturday's postponement, the Gladiators are now off until Tuesday, when they travel to Buffalo Gap. They will then get to enjoy a string of home games, beginning with Stuarts Draft on Wednesday and Stonewall on Friday. Those home games will be well-deserved, because if the weather clears in time to play the Gap game on Tuesday, it will be the Big Red's eighth road game of the season, against only three home games so far.
If there was a surprise about the Eagles tonight, it was seeing just how deep they really are. From all the stories we have read this year, if Jefferson is not the man on any given night, then Nickel is. But tonight, although I did not stick around to hear the official scoring, I would certainly think that junior guard Tyce McNair was the leading scorer, and senior Griffin Morris also had a nice game. With that kind of balance they will be a tough out for anybody the rest of the way.
Riverheads was short-handed tonight by one man but they did not back down. They were willing to at least try and challenge the Eagles inside and they got 18 points out of the Painter brothers to lead their scoring, as sophomore Adam was pressed into more minutes due to the absence of Josh Kinzel. Each Painter brother knocked down a pair of triples and fortunately Gladiator fans will have each of them around again next year.
If you want to put the most positive spin you can on this game from a Riverheads perspective, it would be that we are through with the Eagles, at least for the regular season, and that we are 6-4 at the halfway point of our football-delayed schedule. The remaining ten games will all be played either at home or reasonably close and on paper, all ten of them are "winnable" games.
In fact the Gladiators' schedule took a turn for the better today when a final decision was made about the Rock the Ribbon classic down in Lexington. As mentioned earlier today in another thread, the Saturday part of that event is now canceled for THIS Saturday due to the impending snowstorm. So the teams that would have played then are exploring their options to see if they are available on the new date of the 26th.
Riverheads was already heavily booked around that time so they got creative and came with a nice solution, based on the word in the stands. We will verify this as the time gets closer, but my understanding is that RHS will now play Luray at the Rock the Ribbon, presumably in their designated 4:00 time slot, and the Parry McCluer game (which "technically" would have been a Riverheads home game) will now actually be played at Riverheads, and I believe the date I heard was February 1. There will also be shuffling of JV games but we won't go into that now.
Speaking of JV games, tonight's game saw Riverheads get off to a very slow start and trail by double digits for most of the first half. Ryan Farris then led a spirited second-half comeback that brought the Gladiators back to within three points and gave them chances to tie the game. But East Rock held on to win 32-26, despite the fact that they only scored three points in the fourth quarter, and those all came on foul shots in the last 20 seconds of the game while they were trying to fend off the Gladiator rally.
Due to Saturday's postponement, the Gladiators are now off until Tuesday, when they travel to Buffalo Gap. They will then get to enjoy a string of home games, beginning with Stuarts Draft on Wednesday and Stonewall on Friday. Those home games will be well-deserved, because if the weather clears in time to play the Gap game on Tuesday, it will be the Big Red's eighth road game of the season, against only three home games so far.
