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Albemarle edges Western with second half effort

Photo by Ashley Thornton

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Like so many times already this season, Albemarle just had to weather the storm early and wait for everything to come together at the end. And like so many times already this season, that’s exactly what happened.

 

Western Albemarle came into the contest looking to end the Patriots’ six-game win streak, and the last three years on the road against Albemarle, they’ve been successful. After playing catch-up for the most of the contest, once the Patriots locked things up with the Warriors, it was a back-and-forth contest with Albemarle getting a big 3-pointer from Jake Hahn to take the lead with under two minutes to go. With the Patriots running out the clock and knocking down free throws, a hard-fought win was persevered, 50-46, over their cross county rival.

 

“I told everyone from the start — this was going to be a battle for 32 minutes,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “We never gave up, kept battling.”

 

With its outside shooters, Ryan Ingram and Josh Coffman knocking down big shots, and Western winning the rebounding battle in the first half, the Patriots trailed by 10 going into the break.

 

“I thought we played really well in the first half,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “We didn’t quite come out with the right intensity in the second half though and by letting them go on a run, we let the crowd back into it. But I still thought we made some good plays, it was a good game. We’ve got to finish though. It got a little hectic and we made a few errors. We need to learn from that because we’re going to be in these spots again down the road.”

 

With the Warriors setting the tone in a solid defensive game and excelling from outside, Albemarle switched to a 1-3-1 defensive zone scheme to try and shake things up.

 

“They were putting it to us pretty good with our man-to-man defense, and not many teams have been able to do that to us,” said Greg Maynard. “It’s not that giving up 26 in the first half is a whole lot, but we only had 16 so I thought the move could give us some opportunities on the offensive end too, get us some fast breaks. We stayed with it because it worked.”

 

Midway through the third the Patriots cut the lead in half before taking their first lead since the opening moments of the game with a 3-pointer from Myles Adams-Yates making it 29-28 with just two minutes left in the frame.

 

“When we cut the lead down to four Coach Maynard just kept telling us to keep fighting, so that’s what we did,” Adams-Yates said. “In the first half we didn’t do a great job of getting into their zone and kicking the ball out. We focused on that in the second half and had players knocking down shots.”

 

From that point on, the game teetered back-and-forth. Western finished the third quarter with a 6-1 run to take a 34-30 lead into the fourth. Albemarle came out in the beginning of the fourth with an 8-0 run to go up 38-34 with 5:32 to play. The next three minutes belonged to the Warriors as Coffman and Ingram put Western back out in front 43-41 inside of three minutes remaining.

 

With less than two minutes to play, the Patriots made their last surge. It came with Adams-Yates knocking down a 3-pointer to make it 46-43 and the Patriots defense then stepped up with a critical turnover on the ensuing possession. Western was forced to send Albemarle to the free throw line from there, and while the Warriors got a decent look to try and tie things up in the final seconds, things didn’t bounce their way and the Patriots put the game away at the free throw line.

 

“We talked about it at the break — that we were getting out-worked by them,” Hahn said. “We focused on that in the second and it made a big difference, getting more boards. (This win) feels pretty good, but we have to keep it up.”

 

Hanh’s 17-point effort led the Patriots offensively. Adams-Yates finished with nine points fueled by two second-half 3-pointers. Grant Kersey also had nine points. Both Hahn and Kersey had six rebounds. The Patriots hit four of their five free throws in the last minute of the contest.

 

For Western, both Ingram and Coffman finished with 13 points with each knocking down a trio of 3-pointers. Ted Rampini finished with six points.

 

The Warriors were able to keep Patriots forward Austin Katstra on the bench most of the night as he battled serious foul trouble early. However, outside of that, it was actually Western that struggled with fouls as Albemarle committed just 12 team fouls to the Warriors 20. On top of that, the Patriots managed to keep a solid free throw shooting team from getting to the charity stripe much at all as the bulk of their fouls came on the floor.

 

“I thought one of the big keys to the game was that we only shot 10 free throws and they shot 23, that really hurts,” said Darren Maynard.

 

The two teams take a quick break for exams with Western playing at Monticello and Albemarle hosting Charlottesville, both games on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

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