By Luke Nadkarni / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor
Connor Schroeder scored 12 points and Wynn Miller added 10 as Miller’s boys basketball team used a big fourth quarter to break open a close game and pull away from visiting Liberty Christian Academy Thursday night for a 51-35 victory.
The Mavericks were clinging to a 30-26 lead after three quarters of play when they opened the final frame on a 10-3 run to wrestle control of the game. Schroeder scored the first two baskets of the quarter to double the Mavericks’ lead. After a three by LCA’s Jay Barber cut the lead to five with seven minutes remaining, Schroeder scored again and was followed by baskets from Miller and Tyler Creammer for a 40-29 advantage with 4:15 remaining. After the teams traded baskets, the Bulldogs never got within single digits again.
“I think we controlled our defense well,” Miller head coach Ralf Mellis said. “LCA isn’t going to make many mistakes and they’re not going to give the ball up easily, so you have to try to force them into bad plays.”
Miller led nearly wire-to-wire, with its only deficit being 2-0 at the beginning of the game, but the game was close for three periods. A three-pointer by Schroeder and two baskets by Ron Alston highlighted an 11-2 burst at the end of the first quarter to turn a 6-6 tie into a 17-8 Mavericks lead after one quarter.
But the Mavericks went cold to open the second stanza and the Bulldogs climbed back into the game. Barber, who led his team with 12 points, nailed his first three-pointer with 4:32 left before halftime to trim the deficit to 17-14. Schroeder answered with a trey of his own, but LCA’s Jafar Musa scored back-to-back buckets, including one at the buzzer, to make it a two-point game at the break.
Most of their points came on second chances,” Melis said. “Once we took that away they struggled a little more scoring, and we kept plugging away and kept fighting.”
For the game, the Bulldogs outrebounded Miller 32-22, but committed 16 turnovers to just six for the Mavericks.
The Bulldogs hung around in the third quarter, aided by a pair of Barber threes. The sophomore went 4-for-8 from beyond the arc, but he was the only player on his team to make a trey as the rest of the Bulldogs went 0-for-11 from long range.
“Discipline is LCA’s strength,” Melis said. “But once they got behind with time running down, they had to hurry up, and that played to our strengths.”
With the score knotted at 26, Miller got a free throw from Jaylin Reed and an old-fashioned three-point play from Chance Sheffey for a four-point lead after three. For good measure, Sheffey swatted a potential LCA buzzer-beating three into the Bulldog bench as the horn sounded, setting up his team’s big fourth quarter.
Miller returns to action Saturday night when it travels to Blue Ridge.
