Western Albemarle’s boys basketball team struggled in the first quarter against Louisa County.
“We sort of had two in a row like this where we didn’t play very well and turned it on in the second half,” said Western coach Darren Maynard.
The Warriors weathered the storm again and picked up a 71-63 victory over the Lions with Ryan Ingram’s strong, nearly-mistake free night leading the way. Ingram finished with 23 points, four steals three assists and just a single turnover the entire night despite handling the ball a big part of the night.
“For a while there we were kind of a one-man gang, Ryan was the only one really playing well,” Maynard said. “But then Jared (Carter) started chiming in and I thought that made for a big momentum swing in the game.”
Ingram finished 7-for-8 at the free throw line and hit four 3-pointers. As a team the Warriors were 13-for-17 at the charity stripe in the fourth quarter.
The Warriors got a huge lift from Carter. Carter is a part of a second wave of players that Western often inputs as a group in an effort to take advantage of the squad’s unique depth.
Carter finished with 10 points and six rebounds, including six points in a critical second quarter push. After trailing 18-16 after the opening frame, Western seized a 28-20 lead on the strength of a 12-2 run to start the second quarter. A pair of 3-pointers in the second by Chris McGahren gave the Warriors a jolt too. He finished with 11 points, all in the first half. Josh Coffman had eight points.
Louisa County’s strong start was a big reason for the Warriors early struggles.
“I have to give Louisa credit, I thought they played really well, really hard,” Maynard said. “They shot the ball really well.”
The Lions got 16 points from Jermaine Pace to lead the way, including four 3-pointers. Malachi Poindexter had 14 points including a trio of 3-pointers and Latrell Winkey also finished with 14. Winkey went 8-for-8 at the line and also buried three 3-pointers. Louisa had 11 total 3-pointers.
Still, that assault from beyond the arc wasn’t enough to put the Lions over the top.
“We’ve been shooting the ball pretty decent all year,” said Louisa coach Robert Shelton. “We were able to make some stops early and that gave us some confidence. But it’s hard when you’re playing a team that’s only lost two games to do that consistently.”
