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Back At It: Woodberry Forest falls in season opener to VES

Photo by John Berry

Woodberry Forest boys basketball was locked in in the first half against Virginia Episcopal Friday night in the Tigers’ season opener, knocking down shots and playing tough defense against the Bishops’ challenging lineup. 

 

But things quickly spiraled out of control for Woodberry in the second half in a 131-86 Virginia Episcopal win.

 

“The first half was great, I think we played our basketball and played to our strengths,” said Woodberry guard Noah Adams. “We came out in the second half and they went into that 2-3 zone and we got very stagnant, we couldn’t hit our open shots.” 

 

VES lit up the scoreboard and ripped off a 5-0 run that quickly became a 17-2 run and then perhaps even more rapidly transformed into a 24-4 run. With nine minutes left in the second half, the Tigers were down 95-55 after trailing just 48-42 at the break. 

 

“They were just the aggressors more than anything — that zone really helped them,” said Woodberry coach Craig Dawson. “Our man-to-man offense has been pretty good but we haven’t had a lot of time to work on the zone stuff practicing less than a week but credit to them they shot the heck out of the basketball and they push it.”

 

Virginia Episcopal’s offense exploded for 83 second half points when it was all said and done, partly a product of the 20-minute halves played in the game and partly because the Bishops just couldn’t seem to miss. At all. Justyn Fernandez led the assault with 32 points and Andrew Walker wasn’t far behind with 26. Piercen Young had 15 points and seven assists and Robby Matos had 11 points. 

 

Despite the loss, Woodberry showed some flashes of what Dawson has seen in this group of players, with drastically improved play form Sam Crosby and Jojo Beal intersecting with the continued impressive play of the veteran point guard Adams. Stevan Bajski is healthy now and poured in 19 points for the Tigers while Reid Seck had 10 points and Sam Swinson finished with nine. And those flashes felt secondary to just getting a chance to play. The Tigers have eight games scheduled currently.

 

“It’s a blessing — you look at that scoreboard and I’m not happy with it but the fact that we’re out here playing right now is a blessing,” Dawson said. “So we’re going to have fun and enjoy it.”

 

Adams shared that sense of importance in getting to step on the floor for the first time in a varsity game in more than a year. 

 

“No matter the outcome I still like playing with these guys — we’ve got a season and we didn’t know we were going to have one so it’s a blessing,” Adams said. “We’ll put this one behind us.”

 

Noah Vaughn and Danny McKay each hit a pair of threes for Woodberry while Clark Warren scored six points in the first half. 

 

The Tigers will turn around immediately Saturday and play Virginia Episcopal again on the road. 

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