By Logan Riddick / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor
The final game of day one of the 2014 Daily Progress/NBC29 Holiday Classic proved to be a battle of guards between Western senior Josh Casteen and Turner Ashby sophomore James Sullivan. Sullivan posted a game-high 24 points, but Casteen and the Warriors hung on for a 51-48 victory, largely thanks to a crucial steal by Carter Berry with 2:52 remaining and a clock-draining 107-second possession helmed by sophomore point guard Ryan Ingram.
“We played defense for 75 percent of the game,” said Turner Ashby coach Chad Seibert. “[Western]’s a very good half-court execution team, and it’s difficult to get them out of that rhythm. That gets to your legs, affects your shooting on the offensive end, and your free throw shooting. We have to do a better job of speeding them up and getting them to play faster.”
The Sullivan-Casteen shootout commenced early in the second quarter when Sullivan completed the Knights’ rally from an early 9-4 deficit with a trey that tied the score at 11. Casteen answered by draining a three for Western, and with another triple moments later from junior guard Will Cress, the Warriors built a 26-18 leading heading into the break.
The teams exchanged rallies to open the third. TA pulled within 26-23 in the first minute, drawing a Western timeout. The Warriors tallied the next six to open a nine-point lead. It continued from there, with Sullivan and Casteen each draining a pair of threes, and eight points total, in the quarter.
Western held a 40-31 edge entering the fourth, and focused on ball control for most of the period. Sullivan and Jesse Showalter hit back-to-back threes midway through the quarter to pull the Knights within 42-38. Trailing by six with possession at the 2:52 mark, Seibert called a full timeout to set the offensive attack. That’s when the Warriors’ senior off-the-bench jumped the inbounds, and allowed Western to drain more than half of the clock before being sent to the line.
“[In the timeout] we talked about, if we got it back, we wanted to run a minute or two off the clock in that little thing we do where we look like we’re trying to score but we’re really not,” said Western coach Darren Maynard.
TA’s Brenan Hanifee hit a three with 27.6 seconds left to pull the Knights within 48-44, and Sullivan drained another with under 10 seconds remaining that closed the margin to 51-48.
“Usually we finish games off better than that,” said Maynard, as Western connected on just seven of 16 free throws in the fourth quarter. “Our free throw shooting was really poor down the stretch. Could’ve won a little more easily, but we made it way more interesting than we had to.”
Casteen missed both at the line with 5.6 seconds on the clock, and Turner Ashby managed to rebound and quickly advance to the front court. Brandon Lambert’s attempt to tie from the right corner clanged off the rim.
“It was hard for us to believe we had a three to tie at the end,” Seibert said. “The kids executed very well there to get a wide-open three. They made two beautiful passes but fell a little bit short; that was kind of the story of the game.”
Casteen led the Warriors with 16 points. Junior forward Michael Vale added nine points and nine rebounds.
“[Vale] looked like himself tonight,” said Maynard. “He’s kind of been struggling coming off the football field, and I knew it would be a two- or three-week process. Tonight he gave us a big lift.”
Western will take on Culpeper in the opening 3:30 game on Monday, while TA faces Charlottesville in the second game around 5:15. Albemarle is the host site.
