Last year when Riverheads traveled to Fort Defiance, the Gladiators knocked down a buzzer-beater to stun the Indians 47-45 in a tight defensive slugfest. As you can see from the above score, we saw a "slightly" different style game tonight.
So what changed you may ask? It can be summed up in two words.....Mike Gale. For those of you who don't know, he is the guy that coached at Stuarts Draft for a number of years and introduced the Cougars back then to a frantic style game patterned after Grinnell College in Iowa. There are three basic premises to this style of play.....1) Relentless pressure from start to finish with a goal to create frequent turnovers so as to generate as many scoring opportunities as possible. 2) When you are on offense, jack up the three pointer as quick and as often as you possibly can based on the theory that enough of them are going to go in so that you can win. and 3) Have enough players on your team so that you can substitute frequently to keep fresher bodies on the floor and physically wear down the other team over the course of the four quarters.
Well Mike has now brought his style to Fort Defiance and even incorporated it into the JV program, as evidenced by the Indians winning that game tonight 71-63, which you have to admit is not a normal JV score that you see around here. So we can probably assume that the Fort is going to use this style of play for the foreseeable future.
Does it always work? Apparently not because in at least one game this year, it backfired and the Indians were the team that gave up over 100 points. So on any given night, it is going to depend on how the shots are falling. Obviously they fell pretty much on demand for both Indian teams tonight and in some cases they were shot from NBA range. I did not count how many threes the varsity team hit tonight but if it was less than 20 I would be shocked. I will leave it up to their fans to report on any possible school records that they might have broken.
Now are you ready for the real shocker? In both games, once Riverheads realized what kind of game they were in for, they (the Gladiators) adapted to it quite easily and actually had early double digit leads in each contest. But in both cases, point number three as mentioned above took its toll, which allowed the deeper and therefore fresher Indian team to catch up and pull away late.
So please don't think for a minute that the Gladiators laid down and died in either of these games. The JV game was a one-point affair midway through the fourth quarter and the varsity game did not really get out of hand (margin-wise) until the midway point of the third period.
Since it is my job to report things from a Riverheads perspective, I honestly think the Gladiators did the best they could with what they had to work with, which was 10 players vs. 14 for the Fort, a decided height differential, and as already mentioned, the inevitable fatigue factor. Despite those obstacles, the Gladiators put four guys in double figures, all but one player scored, and they got three pointers from five different players. As for the last time Riverheads scored 82 in any game, well trust me it has been a while.
To elaborate on that early lead I mentioned, J P Crawford scored the first five points for RHS in less than 30 seconds. He would go on to lead the team with 23 points, his second straight 20 point game. The Gladiators went on to take an astonishing 32-20 lead by the end of the first quarter. So for a while at least, they were not only adapting to the Fort style, they were beating the Indians at their own game.
They built on that lead early in the second quarter and an Ethan Mulcahy corner triple, his first of the season, gave RHS a 17-point cushion at 40-23. But almost like someone flipped a switch, the Indians caught fire and scored 20 points in a row to take their first lead of the game. Related to that surge was the fact that Crawford and team leader Henley Dunlap each picked up their second fouls in the second quarter and had to spend some time on the Big Red bench.
The Indians led 47-42 at the break and Riverheads was able to stay close for maybe the first two minutes of the second half. But when the lead reached double digits you could see the handwriting on the wall. It was 73-57 after three and the Fort really piled it on with a 35 point fourth quarter, one that featured some of the most improbable threes of the night. To put it mildly they were clicking on all cylinders and everyone was hitting. But as mentioned above, it is not always going to be that way for them and teams like Staunton and Wilson may have enough weapons of their own when they take on the Indians. Not only that but Riverheads will know what to expect next time and perhaps have some ideas of its own.
As you can imagine, such a racehorse style game is going to be a tough one for the officials to call, so understandably, tonight's crew got their share of catcalls. For the most part, the pattern seemed to be that absolute mayhem would be permitted one minute but a touch foul would be called the next. However to the best of my recollection, each team only had one player called for the maximum five fouls.
Some of the more vocal Gladiator fans were absolutely livid however on not one, but two occasions, when an Indian player got right in the face of a Riverheads guy and engaged in what appeared to be an obvious case of taunting. In both cases, the refs blew a whistle, which of course indicated that they had seen and/or heard SOMETHING. Instead of making a call or giving the player the T that Gladiator fans wanted, both times the refs went to the offending player, gave him a little pep talk, and the game continued with no call being made at all. One of our veteran sportswriters who was on hand was overheard to comment that taunting was supposed to be a point of emphasis this season, but in the eyes of Riverheads fans, that was not the case tonight.
Anyway, this one is in the books and from my viewpoint, both teams showed that they had some serious athleticism and determination and I suspect that each coach had more praise than criticism for his team. It will be interesting to see what happens when the teams meet again at Riverheads and also we will see if this first district game for the Indians turns out to be a standard performance or will it turn out to be THE game of the season for them?
As mentioned already the JV game was played using basically the same Indian style of play. For that one I have to also give major credit to Riverheads because the numbers difference was even greater (15 players to 9) but yet the Gladiators kept it close the entire way. RHS led 23-16 after one, it was tied at 36 at the break, and the Indian lead was only three after the third quarter. So the Indians never were able to put this one completely away. Chris Dotson and Gabe Miller led Riverheads with 20 and 16 respectively.
Riverheads drops to 4-8 with tonight's loss but their next two games (Bath County and Waynesboro) each look winnable so they can hopefully regain some confidence. As of the moment, those two games are on the calendar for Monday and Friday of next week, but Mother Nature may have something to say about all of that.
So what changed you may ask? It can be summed up in two words.....Mike Gale. For those of you who don't know, he is the guy that coached at Stuarts Draft for a number of years and introduced the Cougars back then to a frantic style game patterned after Grinnell College in Iowa. There are three basic premises to this style of play.....1) Relentless pressure from start to finish with a goal to create frequent turnovers so as to generate as many scoring opportunities as possible. 2) When you are on offense, jack up the three pointer as quick and as often as you possibly can based on the theory that enough of them are going to go in so that you can win. and 3) Have enough players on your team so that you can substitute frequently to keep fresher bodies on the floor and physically wear down the other team over the course of the four quarters.
Well Mike has now brought his style to Fort Defiance and even incorporated it into the JV program, as evidenced by the Indians winning that game tonight 71-63, which you have to admit is not a normal JV score that you see around here. So we can probably assume that the Fort is going to use this style of play for the foreseeable future.
Does it always work? Apparently not because in at least one game this year, it backfired and the Indians were the team that gave up over 100 points. So on any given night, it is going to depend on how the shots are falling. Obviously they fell pretty much on demand for both Indian teams tonight and in some cases they were shot from NBA range. I did not count how many threes the varsity team hit tonight but if it was less than 20 I would be shocked. I will leave it up to their fans to report on any possible school records that they might have broken.
Now are you ready for the real shocker? In both games, once Riverheads realized what kind of game they were in for, they (the Gladiators) adapted to it quite easily and actually had early double digit leads in each contest. But in both cases, point number three as mentioned above took its toll, which allowed the deeper and therefore fresher Indian team to catch up and pull away late.
So please don't think for a minute that the Gladiators laid down and died in either of these games. The JV game was a one-point affair midway through the fourth quarter and the varsity game did not really get out of hand (margin-wise) until the midway point of the third period.
Since it is my job to report things from a Riverheads perspective, I honestly think the Gladiators did the best they could with what they had to work with, which was 10 players vs. 14 for the Fort, a decided height differential, and as already mentioned, the inevitable fatigue factor. Despite those obstacles, the Gladiators put four guys in double figures, all but one player scored, and they got three pointers from five different players. As for the last time Riverheads scored 82 in any game, well trust me it has been a while.
To elaborate on that early lead I mentioned, J P Crawford scored the first five points for RHS in less than 30 seconds. He would go on to lead the team with 23 points, his second straight 20 point game. The Gladiators went on to take an astonishing 32-20 lead by the end of the first quarter. So for a while at least, they were not only adapting to the Fort style, they were beating the Indians at their own game.
They built on that lead early in the second quarter and an Ethan Mulcahy corner triple, his first of the season, gave RHS a 17-point cushion at 40-23. But almost like someone flipped a switch, the Indians caught fire and scored 20 points in a row to take their first lead of the game. Related to that surge was the fact that Crawford and team leader Henley Dunlap each picked up their second fouls in the second quarter and had to spend some time on the Big Red bench.
The Indians led 47-42 at the break and Riverheads was able to stay close for maybe the first two minutes of the second half. But when the lead reached double digits you could see the handwriting on the wall. It was 73-57 after three and the Fort really piled it on with a 35 point fourth quarter, one that featured some of the most improbable threes of the night. To put it mildly they were clicking on all cylinders and everyone was hitting. But as mentioned above, it is not always going to be that way for them and teams like Staunton and Wilson may have enough weapons of their own when they take on the Indians. Not only that but Riverheads will know what to expect next time and perhaps have some ideas of its own.
As you can imagine, such a racehorse style game is going to be a tough one for the officials to call, so understandably, tonight's crew got their share of catcalls. For the most part, the pattern seemed to be that absolute mayhem would be permitted one minute but a touch foul would be called the next. However to the best of my recollection, each team only had one player called for the maximum five fouls.
Some of the more vocal Gladiator fans were absolutely livid however on not one, but two occasions, when an Indian player got right in the face of a Riverheads guy and engaged in what appeared to be an obvious case of taunting. In both cases, the refs blew a whistle, which of course indicated that they had seen and/or heard SOMETHING. Instead of making a call or giving the player the T that Gladiator fans wanted, both times the refs went to the offending player, gave him a little pep talk, and the game continued with no call being made at all. One of our veteran sportswriters who was on hand was overheard to comment that taunting was supposed to be a point of emphasis this season, but in the eyes of Riverheads fans, that was not the case tonight.
Anyway, this one is in the books and from my viewpoint, both teams showed that they had some serious athleticism and determination and I suspect that each coach had more praise than criticism for his team. It will be interesting to see what happens when the teams meet again at Riverheads and also we will see if this first district game for the Indians turns out to be a standard performance or will it turn out to be THE game of the season for them?
As mentioned already the JV game was played using basically the same Indian style of play. For that one I have to also give major credit to Riverheads because the numbers difference was even greater (15 players to 9) but yet the Gladiators kept it close the entire way. RHS led 23-16 after one, it was tied at 36 at the break, and the Indian lead was only three after the third quarter. So the Indians never were able to put this one completely away. Chris Dotson and Gabe Miller led Riverheads with 20 and 16 respectively.
Riverheads drops to 4-8 with tonight's loss but their next two games (Bath County and Waynesboro) each look winnable so they can hopefully regain some confidence. As of the moment, those two games are on the calendar for Monday and Friday of next week, but Mother Nature may have something to say about all of that.
