Western Albemarle just could not get going Friday night in the opening minutes against Charlottesville. Seemingly nothing went right, timeouts didn’t help Western reset itself and then the Warriors’ standout big man, Josh Sime got into some foul trouble. It was, without a doubt, a less than ideal start.
“We saw the results of their first two games and just didn’t get up for them like we should and they got very much up for us,” said Western coach Darren Maynard.
Eventually, despite a 13-1 run to start the game by Charlottesville, Western prevailed with a 57-47 win at home and a 1-0 start to the Jefferson District’s regular season race for the Warriors.
Western got a strong effort off the bench from Lucas Farmer, who drove and finished through contact to draw a foul midway through the third quarter to push Western ahead for good at 33-30.
“It was kind of rough having Josh in foul trouble because he’s a dog, so I figured if coach is going to throw me in I’m going to step up, get some energy going, get some buckets, just keep it rolling and fill some big shoes,” said Western’s Lucas Farmer.
Sime battled through that foul trouble to post a team-high 15 points and eight rebounds, with six of those points coming in the fourth quarter as Western put the Black Knights away for good.
A big reason for Charlottesville’s early surge was the complete effort by Keyshawn Hill, who made a number of different plays on both ends of the floor for the Black Knights. Hill poured in 24 points for Charlottesville and went 6-for-8 at the free throw line. With a three each from Caldwell Boyles and Aidan Yates and a couple of buckets from Sebastian Krebs, the Black Knights were just locked in in the first quarter.
“I’ll believe Charlottesville is not going to be a top contender for this district when I see it because it’s never happened before and I don’t think it’s going to happen now,” Maynard said. “I spent my whole week telling my guys that was coming and I couldn’t get them to believe me so maybe now they’ll believe what I tell them.”
The tide started to turn when Western ramped up the pressure defensively and started pressing the Black Knights. Point guard Polo Hill and Charlottesville didn’t immediately meltdown, but it was seemingly death by 1,000 small cuts, with the Warriors slowly chipping away at the lead in the second quarter before scoring 18 to Charlottesville’s 10 in the third quarter to decisively turn the game. Farmer and Isaac Sumpter each scored eight points.
Sime went 7-for-8 at the free throw line, all in the first half, which was particularly impressive because fouls tethered him to the bench for two long stretches, forcing the Warriors to turn to their bench where Farmer and a number of other players shine.
“We have some really good depth and that’s a big part of our team,” Maynard said. “Lucas is a starter quality big man, started a lot last year, we just have so much depth he comes off the bench now and he did a great job. Wes Gobble gave us a big lift and Ross Hardy played really well off the bench.”
James Meenan chipped in five boards for Western while Luca Tesoriere had three steals and Andrew Barrese had three assists.
The Black Knights, who are now 0-3, will travel to take on Fluvanna Tuesday while Western (2-0) will host Louisa County the same night.
