Just under a month removed from its only loss of the season, an overtime defeat on the road against James River District rival Goochland, Buckingham County was still sitting in the driver’s seat with the Bulldogs coming to Dillwyn on Friday. After it was said and done, the Knights not only defended their home court to preserve a regular season split with Goochland, they did it emphatically to launch themselves even further ahead of the rest of the JRD field with a 60-38 victory.
“Our kids played fantastic and I was so pleased with the defensive effort, especially Kyree Koonce holding (Goochland’s) Ceejay Johnson to six points playing one-one-one,” Gowain said. “That was a huge factor along with Cam Johnson’s leadership. He was just a floor general for us tonight. I can’t say enough about those two guys tonight. It was just a great win and give credit to Goochland too because they’re a tough scrappy bunch.”
Where the first meeting between the Knights and Bulldogs was filled with drama, the second showdown saw a tight first six minutes of play followed by dominance the rest of the way for Buckingham with Johnson having a huge night offensively, Timmy Randolph putting together a great two-way game and Koonce playing shutdown defense.
Goochland’s 3-point shooting out of the gate and Buckingham’s success on the glass put the difference at just one possession for most of the first quarter, but when Johnson hit a 3-pointer to close the frame at 17-11, everything when the Knights way for the rest of the night.
“Our focus in practice all week was to take care of this one tonight, with a win we could take control of our destiny in the district,” Johnson said. “So we wanted to come out and play fast, play smart and keep the turnovers down. We really wanted to fill it up for our fans too because we knew it’d be a great crowd.”
Turnovers, foul trouble and a struggle on the glass brought Goochland’s offense to a crawl in the second and third quarters while the Knights thrived with Johnson, Randolph, Koonce and Dre Scott taking high quality shots. Johnson also spent much of the game at the free throw line, and couldn’t have shot better there, hitting all 14 of his foul shots, and eight in the first half. As such, Buckingham quickly turned the 8-point lead going into the second quarter into a 14-point lead and did not waver, heading into the break up 16.
“We had the crowd behind us all night and I had been in a bit of a slump as of late and had to get out of it,” Johnson said. “Tonight was a good night to do that but really just for us to showcase for the fans and put together a really good team effort against a good team.”
To start the third quarter, the Knights amassed a 20-point margin and only let Goochland get to within 18 from that point forward just once, getting 18 points in the frame from six different players. That allowed Buckingham to get up by as much as 25. Little changed in the fourth, and with the game well in hand, both teams rotated through their benches to close out the game.
“We had two offensive rebounds and that’s just not going to get it done,” said Goochland coach Preston Gordon. “They just came out and wanted it more. We didn’t come to play. We try to strive on effort and pouring your heart out on every play, we didn’t play that way tonight.”
Johnson had a game high 25 points on the night. In addition to his impressive 14 for 14 showing from the foul line, Scott and Justin Ayres each went 4 for 4 with Scott finishing with eight points and Ayres with six. Randolph had a double-double showing with 11 points and 11 rebounds. Koonce finished with eight points.
For Goochland, Ceejay Johnson and Nathan Mattox each had six points to tie for a team best. Alec Crepps added five points all in the fourth quarter at the free throw line. Only two Bulldogs finished with more than one field goal.
“We’ll take a look at what we did wrong,” Gordon said. “A lot of it was offensively, it was defensive too, but those guys are talented, well coached and they can go far. Yet at the same time we’ve got a good ball club but we’ve got to bring our ‘A’ game. So we’ll look for that (next game)”
Goochland (10-5, 8-3) hosts Cumberland on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Buckingham (17-1, 10-1) plays Central Lunenburg at home also on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
