I am making that a question mark because I am not the official source for RHS but according to my (keep everything in a notebook at home) stats, the Big Red set a new school record tonight by hitting 14 three pointers in a 75-43 road romp over Bath County. The much-needed victory comes after some disappointing losses and hopefully can spur the team on to bigger and better things. They are now 2-3 on the season with both wins coming against the Chargers.
The surprising thing about tonight's aerial attack was that 12 of those triples came from just two players........one of whom has had many such big outings but the other one came from out of nowhere to set a new career high for himself. The not-at-all surprising assassin was senior captain and team leader Bennett Dunlap, who knocked down 7 of them and in most cases the net did not even move, as he led all scorers with 21 points.
But the game ball honors tonight just might have to go to sophomore J P Crawford, who knocked down five of his own from behind the arc and finished with 17 points. This is his first year on the varsity and his previous high had been eight points. But tonight he found a sweet spot or two and just felt very comfortable in the offense.
The two remaining triples came from senior Chris Brooks and sophomore Will Gardner, who coincidentally had torched these same Chargers with seven threes of his own in the season-opener when the Gladiators had only six bodies to put on the floor due to the football season still being in session. He scored his career high of 31 that night and still ranks as the Big Red's leading scorer so far this year. Also scoring in double figures tonight was Carter Mooneyham, who finished with 11 hard-earned points, mostly coming on fast break lay ups.
The game started out with a very slow pace and in fact Coach Weller pulled the starters midway through the first quarter and inserted the "blue team." That strategy was most likely due to the fact that the Gladiators have to turn right around tomorrow night and battle Parry McCluer for the second time this week. As a result, all 10 players saw plenty of action tonight.
Riverheads led 19-4 after one quarter, and already had four of those treys by that time. However they went somewhat cold in the second quarter and the Chargers actually won that period 9-8 to trail 27-13 at the break.
However, any intentions that RHS had of slowing the pace down or conserving their energy went out the window in the second half because both teams stepped up the tempo and we saw a track meet for the entire second half with Riverheads scoring 48 points and the Chargers a respectable 30. Each team fought hard for every loose ball right up to the final horn.
There was no JV game tonight, reportedly due to the Chargers having too few players available. Hopefully for their sake that is a temporary issue so that they can continue to build their program.
As mentioned Riverheads swings right back into action tomorrow night as part of the much-anticipated boy/girl quadruple header at home with Parry McCluer providing the opposition. The boys' teams just played in Buena Vista on Tuesday with RHS winning the JV game and PM taking the varsity game. Back in November, PM swept the RHS girls, giving them a 3-1 advantage so far. They will of course hope for a repeat performance tomorrow when the games get underway with the JV girls playing at 2:00.
Conversely, Riverheads would like to avenge some or all of those three defeats and even things up a bit. The remaining schedule will be JV boys at 4:00, Varsity girls at 6:00, and Varsity boys at 8:00. We are not sure if those are firm times or just estimates based on the average length of a game and the warm-up times in between. So your best bet is just to come in person and check out the action. For those of you in other areas, I assume that at least some of the event will be on NFHS. As the old saying goes "Check your local listings."
Regardless of what happens tomorrow, Riverheads will dive back in to Shenandoah District play Tuesday when the Big Red boys will host Buffalo Gap while the Lady Gladiators will travel to the Gap. We probably don't have to tell you how wild those two gyms will be!
The surprising thing about tonight's aerial attack was that 12 of those triples came from just two players........one of whom has had many such big outings but the other one came from out of nowhere to set a new career high for himself. The not-at-all surprising assassin was senior captain and team leader Bennett Dunlap, who knocked down 7 of them and in most cases the net did not even move, as he led all scorers with 21 points.
But the game ball honors tonight just might have to go to sophomore J P Crawford, who knocked down five of his own from behind the arc and finished with 17 points. This is his first year on the varsity and his previous high had been eight points. But tonight he found a sweet spot or two and just felt very comfortable in the offense.
The two remaining triples came from senior Chris Brooks and sophomore Will Gardner, who coincidentally had torched these same Chargers with seven threes of his own in the season-opener when the Gladiators had only six bodies to put on the floor due to the football season still being in session. He scored his career high of 31 that night and still ranks as the Big Red's leading scorer so far this year. Also scoring in double figures tonight was Carter Mooneyham, who finished with 11 hard-earned points, mostly coming on fast break lay ups.
The game started out with a very slow pace and in fact Coach Weller pulled the starters midway through the first quarter and inserted the "blue team." That strategy was most likely due to the fact that the Gladiators have to turn right around tomorrow night and battle Parry McCluer for the second time this week. As a result, all 10 players saw plenty of action tonight.
Riverheads led 19-4 after one quarter, and already had four of those treys by that time. However they went somewhat cold in the second quarter and the Chargers actually won that period 9-8 to trail 27-13 at the break.
However, any intentions that RHS had of slowing the pace down or conserving their energy went out the window in the second half because both teams stepped up the tempo and we saw a track meet for the entire second half with Riverheads scoring 48 points and the Chargers a respectable 30. Each team fought hard for every loose ball right up to the final horn.
There was no JV game tonight, reportedly due to the Chargers having too few players available. Hopefully for their sake that is a temporary issue so that they can continue to build their program.
As mentioned Riverheads swings right back into action tomorrow night as part of the much-anticipated boy/girl quadruple header at home with Parry McCluer providing the opposition. The boys' teams just played in Buena Vista on Tuesday with RHS winning the JV game and PM taking the varsity game. Back in November, PM swept the RHS girls, giving them a 3-1 advantage so far. They will of course hope for a repeat performance tomorrow when the games get underway with the JV girls playing at 2:00.
Conversely, Riverheads would like to avenge some or all of those three defeats and even things up a bit. The remaining schedule will be JV boys at 4:00, Varsity girls at 6:00, and Varsity boys at 8:00. We are not sure if those are firm times or just estimates based on the average length of a game and the warm-up times in between. So your best bet is just to come in person and check out the action. For those of you in other areas, I assume that at least some of the event will be on NFHS. As the old saying goes "Check your local listings."
Regardless of what happens tomorrow, Riverheads will dive back in to Shenandoah District play Tuesday when the Big Red boys will host Buffalo Gap while the Lady Gladiators will travel to the Gap. We probably don't have to tell you how wild those two gyms will be!
