Grant Painter exploded out of the locker room with an eight-point surge that only took a little bit over a minute to ignite a 26-point third quarter as the Big Red picked up a MUCH NEEDED confidence builder. RHS had gone into the break trailing 33-23 and by the time his teammate Zach Adams dropped in a bucket of his own, the score was tied at 33.
However the Bison did not fold and things were pretty tight the rest of the way. In fact the game came down to a missed three-pointer from the Gap's Tanner Rivenburg with lots of emotion and momentum swings along the way. But as they say a win is a win and the Gladiators will take it and hope to add a few more to it before they hang up their sneakers.
The first half as you can tell belonged mostly to the visiting Bison. A player that I have to admit that I had not heard much about, Samuel Holden, dropped in the first four points for the Gap and soon afterwards his teammate Rivenburg joined in the fun.
The Gladiators meanwhile came out on fire from three point land as junior Adam Painter dropped in three of them before most of the fans had settled into their seats. Grant then stroked one of his own and the Big Red had a 12-8 lead. However the Gap then closed out the quarter on a 9-0 run to make it 17-12. Riverheads trimmed it to 17-16 but the Bison were off and running again as they led for the rest of the period and took their 10 point cushion into the locker room. At that point, things were not looking good for the home team.
However on other occasions this season, including against these same Bison, the Gladiators came out of the locker room re-energized and put up a strong second half effort. On some of those occasions, they had fallen short and absorbed the loss, but tonight they held on for the win.
Following Painter's wake up call, the Gladiators were only able to tie the score a few more times in the third, the last one of those being at 46. But then Grant drained a deeeeepppp triple to put the home team ahead 49-46. With just 1.6 left in the quarter, Elijah Dunlap made a key defensive play, tying up a Bison player in front of his own bench for a held ball. That gave the Bison only that short amount of time to work with but more importantly turned the possession arrow in RHS' favor to start the fourth quarter.
By this time, Holden had cooled off for the Bison but Rivenburg was still hitting. Not only that but the Gap's team leader Weston Smith was hanging around as well and starting to pick up some offensive boards and stickbacks just like he had done in the earlier Bison win on their home floor.
BG took the lead one last time at 52-51 but Riverheads went on a quick 7-point surge to take its biggest lead of the night at 58-52. But in typical Augusta County fashion, the Bison refused to go away as they crept back to within 58-55 as the clock ticked down toward the one minute mark.
The Gladiators then got key plays, one on defense and one on offense, from the unlikely source of Deacon Moore, who was filling in for the Big Red's still injured 6'5" senior center Honor Robinson. Most of the armchair quarterbacks (or would you call them "armchair point guards" in basketball?) are guessing that he (Robinson) will remain out Thursday so as to reduce the risk of re-aggravating his injury but will hopefully be available for the playoffs.
Anyway, with the score at 58-55, Moore first emphatically swatted a Bison shot into the student section, bringing one of the biggest home crowd cheers of the night. RHS regained possession and Deacon, now on offense, hoisted up a not-exactly-the-shot-the-coach-wanted three pointer. It came up short but as is often the case, Deacon knew that better than anybody so he followed his shot, grabbed the rebound, and laid a soft one over the rim to make it 60-55.
But we were not through with the drama yet. A Bison, most likely Rivenburg, drained a triple to make it 60-58. The visitors then sent not one, but two, normally dependable Gladiators to the foul line in the final minute but each one of them failed to connect, leaving the door open for a Bison miracle.
The final 35 or so very tense seconds were spent entirely in the Bison frontcourt. Riverheads tightened up its defense, keeping the visitors from getting it inside or getting the shot they wanted. They called a couple of timeouts down the stretch and as the clock wound down to the final seconds, Rivenburg had one final look, a pretty good one in fact, but it bounced off the rim and the Gladiators had the hard-earned win.
The three point basket was clearly the key tonight for RHS as each Painter hit four of them and Dunlap added two more. That was at least the third or fourth time this season the Big Red has hit 10 threes in a game. Grant led all scorers with 22 and Adam was right behind him with 18. Dunlap finished with 8 and Moore with 6. But wait, that is only 54, and with a two-point win, who is to say which bucket was the "game winner," so hats off also to Adams for his basket as well as the ones scored by Ryan Farris and Ty Morris in back-up roles. I do not keep scoring for our opponents but I believe I heard the PA announcer say that their scoring went 19 for Smith, 16 for Rivenburg, and 14 for Holden.
Each team will now hope to enjoy a successful Senior Night at home. For Riverheads that will be Thursday not Friday due to a wrestling conflict, and they will host Stuarts Draft. The Bison meanwhile will have revenge on their minds when Fort Defiance comes calling on Friday. The Indians began their recent resurgence with a 52-50 home win over the Gap.
Tonight's JV game was almost an exact duplication of the one these teams played out at the Gap earlier. RHS jumped out to a big early lead, the Bison got hot from three point range and took control, Riverheads had a few mini-rallies but could never string together the key baskets to catch up and the Bison held on to win 61-51. Although the loss drops the Big Red JVs to 10-8 on the season, I overheard someone say that it was RHS' first double-digit loss of the season, which means they have been highly-competitive night in and night out.
And speaking of being competitive (can we have a big SIGH here?) tonight's JV officiating crew just could not help themselves.........they had to make sure they also made our extra-long highlight reel of "what game are you watching?" For the second game in a row, one of the officials clearly allowed an opposing player to move along the sideline on an inbounds pass when he was supposed to remain stationary. This one was a much clearer violation than the one in Staunton on Friday and it also came at a time when the call "might" have made a difference. The Gladiator faithful made darn sure he knew he had made a mistake but as you know it is hard to get a "do-over" out of one of those little striped rascals.
I know I have nitpicked about the officials but it does seriously seem as if we have had more than our share of head-shakers this year. The Granddaddy of them all being the one back early in the season when they turned the players the wrong way to begin an overtime period. Oh well maybe next year.......
And speaking of overtimes, weren't we all just big-time impressed with that 3-2 overtime tonight over in Charlottesville? That is another team that just can't seem to get out of its own way sometimes.
Oh well..........See you back here later in the week to wrap up the regular season.
However the Bison did not fold and things were pretty tight the rest of the way. In fact the game came down to a missed three-pointer from the Gap's Tanner Rivenburg with lots of emotion and momentum swings along the way. But as they say a win is a win and the Gladiators will take it and hope to add a few more to it before they hang up their sneakers.
The first half as you can tell belonged mostly to the visiting Bison. A player that I have to admit that I had not heard much about, Samuel Holden, dropped in the first four points for the Gap and soon afterwards his teammate Rivenburg joined in the fun.
The Gladiators meanwhile came out on fire from three point land as junior Adam Painter dropped in three of them before most of the fans had settled into their seats. Grant then stroked one of his own and the Big Red had a 12-8 lead. However the Gap then closed out the quarter on a 9-0 run to make it 17-12. Riverheads trimmed it to 17-16 but the Bison were off and running again as they led for the rest of the period and took their 10 point cushion into the locker room. At that point, things were not looking good for the home team.
However on other occasions this season, including against these same Bison, the Gladiators came out of the locker room re-energized and put up a strong second half effort. On some of those occasions, they had fallen short and absorbed the loss, but tonight they held on for the win.
Following Painter's wake up call, the Gladiators were only able to tie the score a few more times in the third, the last one of those being at 46. But then Grant drained a deeeeepppp triple to put the home team ahead 49-46. With just 1.6 left in the quarter, Elijah Dunlap made a key defensive play, tying up a Bison player in front of his own bench for a held ball. That gave the Bison only that short amount of time to work with but more importantly turned the possession arrow in RHS' favor to start the fourth quarter.
By this time, Holden had cooled off for the Bison but Rivenburg was still hitting. Not only that but the Gap's team leader Weston Smith was hanging around as well and starting to pick up some offensive boards and stickbacks just like he had done in the earlier Bison win on their home floor.
BG took the lead one last time at 52-51 but Riverheads went on a quick 7-point surge to take its biggest lead of the night at 58-52. But in typical Augusta County fashion, the Bison refused to go away as they crept back to within 58-55 as the clock ticked down toward the one minute mark.
The Gladiators then got key plays, one on defense and one on offense, from the unlikely source of Deacon Moore, who was filling in for the Big Red's still injured 6'5" senior center Honor Robinson. Most of the armchair quarterbacks (or would you call them "armchair point guards" in basketball?) are guessing that he (Robinson) will remain out Thursday so as to reduce the risk of re-aggravating his injury but will hopefully be available for the playoffs.
Anyway, with the score at 58-55, Moore first emphatically swatted a Bison shot into the student section, bringing one of the biggest home crowd cheers of the night. RHS regained possession and Deacon, now on offense, hoisted up a not-exactly-the-shot-the-coach-wanted three pointer. It came up short but as is often the case, Deacon knew that better than anybody so he followed his shot, grabbed the rebound, and laid a soft one over the rim to make it 60-55.
But we were not through with the drama yet. A Bison, most likely Rivenburg, drained a triple to make it 60-58. The visitors then sent not one, but two, normally dependable Gladiators to the foul line in the final minute but each one of them failed to connect, leaving the door open for a Bison miracle.
The final 35 or so very tense seconds were spent entirely in the Bison frontcourt. Riverheads tightened up its defense, keeping the visitors from getting it inside or getting the shot they wanted. They called a couple of timeouts down the stretch and as the clock wound down to the final seconds, Rivenburg had one final look, a pretty good one in fact, but it bounced off the rim and the Gladiators had the hard-earned win.
The three point basket was clearly the key tonight for RHS as each Painter hit four of them and Dunlap added two more. That was at least the third or fourth time this season the Big Red has hit 10 threes in a game. Grant led all scorers with 22 and Adam was right behind him with 18. Dunlap finished with 8 and Moore with 6. But wait, that is only 54, and with a two-point win, who is to say which bucket was the "game winner," so hats off also to Adams for his basket as well as the ones scored by Ryan Farris and Ty Morris in back-up roles. I do not keep scoring for our opponents but I believe I heard the PA announcer say that their scoring went 19 for Smith, 16 for Rivenburg, and 14 for Holden.
Each team will now hope to enjoy a successful Senior Night at home. For Riverheads that will be Thursday not Friday due to a wrestling conflict, and they will host Stuarts Draft. The Bison meanwhile will have revenge on their minds when Fort Defiance comes calling on Friday. The Indians began their recent resurgence with a 52-50 home win over the Gap.
Tonight's JV game was almost an exact duplication of the one these teams played out at the Gap earlier. RHS jumped out to a big early lead, the Bison got hot from three point range and took control, Riverheads had a few mini-rallies but could never string together the key baskets to catch up and the Bison held on to win 61-51. Although the loss drops the Big Red JVs to 10-8 on the season, I overheard someone say that it was RHS' first double-digit loss of the season, which means they have been highly-competitive night in and night out.
And speaking of being competitive (can we have a big SIGH here?) tonight's JV officiating crew just could not help themselves.........they had to make sure they also made our extra-long highlight reel of "what game are you watching?" For the second game in a row, one of the officials clearly allowed an opposing player to move along the sideline on an inbounds pass when he was supposed to remain stationary. This one was a much clearer violation than the one in Staunton on Friday and it also came at a time when the call "might" have made a difference. The Gladiator faithful made darn sure he knew he had made a mistake but as you know it is hard to get a "do-over" out of one of those little striped rascals.
I know I have nitpicked about the officials but it does seriously seem as if we have had more than our share of head-shakers this year. The Granddaddy of them all being the one back early in the season when they turned the players the wrong way to begin an overtime period. Oh well maybe next year.......
And speaking of overtimes, weren't we all just big-time impressed with that 3-2 overtime tonight over in Charlottesville? That is another team that just can't seem to get out of its own way sometimes.
Oh well..........See you back here later in the week to wrap up the regular season.
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Just when you think you found the right people to gripe about ... the stripes fight back!
