For video of the closing minutes of this game, click here.
Albemarle’s players looked strangely calm after Waynesboro’s Skylar Phillips buried a 3-pointer from the corner to erase a three-point Patriot lead with 7.2 seconds to play in Tuesday night’s NBC29/Daily Progress Holiday Classic semifinal at Western Albemarle High.
Apparently, they had every reason to be confident.
“In practice we go through those situations a lot at the end — time and score,” said Albemarle’s Lee Carneal. “We knew we had time and the perfect play for it.”
Carneal drove toward the middle of the court, made a crisp pass to Andrew Mann just inside the paint near the free-throw line. Mann quickly released a jumper moving from left to right and buried it for a 64-63 victory over the previously undefeated Little Giants.
“(Mann) did that in (team) camp too in the championship game,” Carneal said. “(I come off his pick) and he just finds the open area.”
Carneal himself scored five critical points in the final minute to give the Patriots the advantage that Washington erased, burying a spinning close range shot in the lane for a bucket and the foul that put Albemarle up 60-59. After a Waynesboro miss and an Albemarle rebound, Carneal was fouled and hit both free throws, setting up Washington’s game-tying bucket. The junior point guard had a monster night on the whole with a team-high 17 points, six assists and four steals.
“We needed his scoring tonight because we weren’t getting it in some other places,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “It was just a good high school game — a lot of momentum shifts.”
Carneal was instrumental down the stretch, scoring 10 of his 17 points in the fourth and knocking down the big three free throws with under a minute to play.
Mann finished with 15 points and eight boards, dominating during a big stretch of the third quarter that included a couple of his five steals, one of which he pickpocketed a Waynesboro guard from behind and raced to an easy lay-in.
Michael Ledford had six assists too while Jeremiah Morris and Jake Hendrix each had nine points and Kendall Hawkins came up with seven.
Waynesboro hung around the entire game largely on the strength of forwards Chris Johnson and Alex Graves’ efforts underneath. The tandem had 15 and 13 points each while doing a solid job on the boards.
“They’re just good inside players and Johnson’s a tough matchup for post players because he puts the ball on the floor and he has all the spins and fakes and stuff,” Maynard said. “The when Jake (Hendrix) got in foul trouble that didn’t help either.”
The Little Giants’ Shy Washington complimented the post tandem with a team-high 21 points including three 3-pointers.
