The loudest cheer of the night seemed to come from Blue Ridge headmaster Trip Darrin announcing to the Ridge Rowdies student section that they would enjoy a Headmaster’s Day Thursday — a day off essentially — but that’s understandable. The Barons’ basketball team didn’t get the job done in a 50-38 win over Miller School with much flash Wednesday night.
Instead, they got it done with suffocating defense.
“We were talking and we usually don’t start off talking,” said Blue Ridge sophomore Michael Gray. “But we got going because of that.”
In a win that locked up the regular season VIC title and potentially the No. 1 seed in the VISAA Division 2 tournament, even the defense wasn’t all that flashy, with just three steals and two blocks as a team. It was technically sound though, which is particularly impressive because 6-foot-9 rim protector and leading rebounder Jaden Frazier was sick and unable to play.
Instead, the Barons’ pack of younger, less-experienced post players had to step up against the Mavericks’ tall lineup led by Tariq Balogun underneath.
“It’s just heart,” said Blue Ridge senior Chris Rogers. “They realize we have our best big man down and he’s a senior, he’s a presence, he’s a leader. They realize they have to step up and they did it very well tonight. It was a great performance by Houston Emory, Sasha Glushkov, Andy Nwaoko and Savion Helm too.”
The rebounding effort came in the aggregate, with the sophomore Emory and junior Nwaoko leading the way with six boards each while Gray and Rogers had four boards each and Sasha Glushkov and Savion Helm had three each.
“It’s a testament to how hard we worked back in September and every day all the way through now,” Rogers said. “Man-to-man defense, turning guys, defensive rotations, we’re rotating and rebounding — it’s a testament to the system coach Cade (Lemcke) has us in and how hard we’re working every day.”
That defensive effort and an unwillingness to give up second chances on the boards allowed the Barons to build a 24-19 lead at the half despite a solid Miller surge late that Quadir Pettaway led that ended with a buzzer-beating drive.
The Barons kept plugging away and expanding their lead while Miller struggled to score and Gray struck a big blow with two of his team-high 17 points coming on a slick inside-out dribble and long jumper in the fourth quarter.
“My big set a great screen and rolled hard and took the guard off of me,” Gray said.
Gray scored the first nine points of the game for the Barons including a pair of huge three pointers that got the Barons going and put Miller in an early hole. William Lee did his part too, knocking down both threes that he took while scoring 12 points on the night.
Seemingly every time the Mavericks put together any kind of spurt, Blue Ridge had an answer. Quadir Pettaway battled and finished with 14 points, but the sophomore scorer had to work for nearly every shot he got, including a sequence where he missed everything on a three before Garrett Payne snagged a rebound, fed Pettaway again and Pettaway buried a three.
DaeDae Heard finished with nine points but offense was hard to come from beyond Heard and Pettaway for the Mavericks.
Miller will turn its attention to the VIC tournament after dropping two of the last three games while Blue Ridge carries an eight-game win streak into its home finale with Benedictine on Monday.
