It was a big-time stretch of basketball by Charlottesville’s girls basketball team. Two of them actually, and they were enough for a 61-38 victory over Western Albemarle.
“I thought we had two of the best five minutes I’ve seen,” said CHS coach James Daly. “We knew how hard they were going to press and we knew how hard they were going to play. We knew they were going to come back, but we didn’t turn into a panic, we settled down.”
The Black Knights jumped out to a 9-2 lead from which Western quickly recovered, tying the score at 13-13 before the end of the first quarter. In the second, Charlottesville caught fire again, building a 39-20 lead by halftime with an explosive second quarter.
“I thought they did a good job of refocusing and they talked and communicated as well as they have all year,” Daly said. “I thought we shared the ball really well.”
Destinee McDonald’s 17 first half points (she finished with 23 in the game) helped key that early explosion. The Black Knights scored 26 points in the second quarter, with 10 coming from McDonald and the rest coming from five different players. A series of Western turnovers helped contribute to the onslaught.
“(There were) a lot of things going on during that stretch between them executing really well and making shots but then us not executing well and giving them a bunch of other stuff,” said Western coach Kris Wright.
Indeed, Western largely played the Black Knights even in the second half, including holding Charlottesville to just six third quarter points. The incredible second quarter was an unusual lapse for the Warriors who were coming off wins over Louisa County and Waynesboro earlier in the week.
Western got solid play from freshman Elizabeth Coffman, who scored seven points and had a couple of solid assists , particularly during the early rally that evened the game at 13-13. Natalie Marbury led the Warriors with 11 points while Eleri Hayden finished with 10 points. Western managed to close the gap to 13 at one point in the second half, but couldn’t get over the hump
“If we could have made one more run to get it to single digits, you never know how high school kids will react, but we never could get it to that single digits to put some game pressure on them,” Wright said.
For Charlottesville, Alajiah Ragland finished with 13 points while Kajesha Taylor and Kaniyah Key notched seven points each.
