These two county rivals are scheduled to meet twice more this season, but if either one of those is anywhere near as intense as tonight's game was, the faint of heart should stay at home. The Gladiators finally pulled out the narrow win, but only after being whistled for two fouls in the final five seconds and seeing a BG player miss a pair of foul shots that could have won the game for the visiting Bison. The game then ended with a wild scramble in the Bison lane after those two missed shots.
As you can imagine, the game turned or the momentum switched on literally every possession tonight. The play was very ragged and both fan bases spent the entire evening screaming at the officials for what they deemed to be either missed calls or incorrect ones. The play around the rim was especially brutal as was the point guard battle between Riverheads' Henley Dunlap and Gap's Blake Robertson. Those two went after it all game long and each factored into some key baskets but more importantly a number of controversial block/charge calls, and as we all know, you can never please all the people all the time when it comes to that situation.
The "official" winning basket was a runner in the lane by Dunlap with about 30 seconds left. The Bison then had the ball for the remainder of the game and spent that entire time period frantically trying to re-take the lead. First an open lay-up was rejected at the rim, which sent Coach Ward into a frenzy when no foul was called.
But as already mentioned, the Gap still had its chances when Riverheads was hit with an illegal screen call trying to move the ball back into its own end of the floor, and less than two seconds later, an effective trap against a Bison guard was ruled a holding foul, which resulted in those final two charity tosses.
In addition to Dunlap's game winner, four other buckets are worth mentioning as being absolutely crucial to the Big Red victory. First of all, leading scorer Jackson Brammer hit two triples among his 16 points but one of them banked into the basket at the third quarter horn and the other, also in the second half, rolled around and touched every bit of the iron before it finally went through.
But just as important and maybe even more so were a pair of second-half stickbacks by sophomore Gabe Lloyd, who is usually one of the quietest guys on the floor. On two occasions late in the game, he was in the right place at the right time, specifically just to the left of the basket, and he rebounded a missed shot and put it back in. One of those turned out to be an old-fashioned three-point play, and considering the final score........well you do the math.
Steady guard J P Crawford added a dozen points and Dunlap finished with eight. That duo, along with Brammer, made up half the announced All-Tournament team, along with Robertson, his fellow Bison Logan Hewitt, and Mountain View's Johnny Hasley. (More on him in a moment.)
Another odd quirk about tonight's finale was the scoring pattern. The first and third quarters were wider open with more scoring, as RHS won both periods 16-15 and 19-14. However the second and fourth quarters were the ugly ones, with Riverheads surviving a dismal 2-6 second period and a tense 8-9 Bison advantage in the fourth.
As they say, a win is a win, but if you were to review the now 62 year history of this rivalry, you could probably find 20 or 30 more games that were every bit as wild. Chapter Two will be at Buffalo Gap on January 16th if you want to mark that date on your calendars.
As for the three games that preceded tonight's finale, Liberty Bedford's outstanding JV team wrapped up an impressive two-game appearance as they whipped the Bison JVs 49-34. The Riverheads JVs then thumped Mountain View by scoring the first 18 points of the game, which allowed them to coast to a 37-18 win. Making that victory even more impressive was the fact that MV had its full 14-man roster available whereas Riverheads was in familiar territory, down to just seven players again due to an illness for one and an injury last night to another. With today's win, the Junior GMen are now 5-5 on the season.
In tonight's varsity consolation game, Mountain View won 42-33 over Liberty Bedford behind a great game from All-Tournament selection Hasley. He knocked down three triples in the second quarter that brought the Generals back from an early deficit and allowed them to hold off a late surge from Liberty. The Minutemen crept back to within 36-33 late, but MV closed out the game with a 6-0 flurry to take the third place slot in this year's tournament. But considering Liberty's great showing from the JV team, their fans should have faith that better days are ahead for their program.
Overall a great tournament and if it becomes an annual thing, hopefully future ones will be just as exciting as this one was. As for the immediate future, Riverheads will be back at home Wednesday against Wilson to open the 2024 portion of the schedule.
As you can imagine, the game turned or the momentum switched on literally every possession tonight. The play was very ragged and both fan bases spent the entire evening screaming at the officials for what they deemed to be either missed calls or incorrect ones. The play around the rim was especially brutal as was the point guard battle between Riverheads' Henley Dunlap and Gap's Blake Robertson. Those two went after it all game long and each factored into some key baskets but more importantly a number of controversial block/charge calls, and as we all know, you can never please all the people all the time when it comes to that situation.
The "official" winning basket was a runner in the lane by Dunlap with about 30 seconds left. The Bison then had the ball for the remainder of the game and spent that entire time period frantically trying to re-take the lead. First an open lay-up was rejected at the rim, which sent Coach Ward into a frenzy when no foul was called.
But as already mentioned, the Gap still had its chances when Riverheads was hit with an illegal screen call trying to move the ball back into its own end of the floor, and less than two seconds later, an effective trap against a Bison guard was ruled a holding foul, which resulted in those final two charity tosses.
In addition to Dunlap's game winner, four other buckets are worth mentioning as being absolutely crucial to the Big Red victory. First of all, leading scorer Jackson Brammer hit two triples among his 16 points but one of them banked into the basket at the third quarter horn and the other, also in the second half, rolled around and touched every bit of the iron before it finally went through.
But just as important and maybe even more so were a pair of second-half stickbacks by sophomore Gabe Lloyd, who is usually one of the quietest guys on the floor. On two occasions late in the game, he was in the right place at the right time, specifically just to the left of the basket, and he rebounded a missed shot and put it back in. One of those turned out to be an old-fashioned three-point play, and considering the final score........well you do the math.
Steady guard J P Crawford added a dozen points and Dunlap finished with eight. That duo, along with Brammer, made up half the announced All-Tournament team, along with Robertson, his fellow Bison Logan Hewitt, and Mountain View's Johnny Hasley. (More on him in a moment.)
Another odd quirk about tonight's finale was the scoring pattern. The first and third quarters were wider open with more scoring, as RHS won both periods 16-15 and 19-14. However the second and fourth quarters were the ugly ones, with Riverheads surviving a dismal 2-6 second period and a tense 8-9 Bison advantage in the fourth.
As they say, a win is a win, but if you were to review the now 62 year history of this rivalry, you could probably find 20 or 30 more games that were every bit as wild. Chapter Two will be at Buffalo Gap on January 16th if you want to mark that date on your calendars.
As for the three games that preceded tonight's finale, Liberty Bedford's outstanding JV team wrapped up an impressive two-game appearance as they whipped the Bison JVs 49-34. The Riverheads JVs then thumped Mountain View by scoring the first 18 points of the game, which allowed them to coast to a 37-18 win. Making that victory even more impressive was the fact that MV had its full 14-man roster available whereas Riverheads was in familiar territory, down to just seven players again due to an illness for one and an injury last night to another. With today's win, the Junior GMen are now 5-5 on the season.
In tonight's varsity consolation game, Mountain View won 42-33 over Liberty Bedford behind a great game from All-Tournament selection Hasley. He knocked down three triples in the second quarter that brought the Generals back from an early deficit and allowed them to hold off a late surge from Liberty. The Minutemen crept back to within 36-33 late, but MV closed out the game with a 6-0 flurry to take the third place slot in this year's tournament. But considering Liberty's great showing from the JV team, their fans should have faith that better days are ahead for their program.
Overall a great tournament and if it becomes an annual thing, hopefully future ones will be just as exciting as this one was. As for the immediate future, Riverheads will be back at home Wednesday against Wilson to open the 2024 portion of the schedule.
