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Calvary Charge: Charlottesville girls use balanced second half to slip past Albemarle

By Drew Goodman / Scrimmageplaycva.com Correspondent

 

Sixteen days following an eight-point loss to Albemarle in the second round of the holiday tournament, Charlottesville girls basketball coach Jim Daly challenged his team to play with a greater sense of urgency in Friday night’s rematch.

 

Sophomore guard TC Younger answered the call early on, scoring from nearly every spot on the court, while facing heavy pressure from the Patriots. She tallied 17 of Charlottesville’s 28 first half points, but as thrilled as Daly was with her performance, he knew that the rest of his team would need to pick up the slack in the stretch run of the game if the Knights were to emerge victorious.

 

The cavalry arrived in the final quarters.

 

Five different Black Knights scored in the second half as Charlottesville held off a late rally for a 55-46 triumph on the Patriots’ home floor.

 

Charlottesville (9-3) maintained the advantage for nearly the entire contest and never trailed by fewer than two possessions in the second half. Friday’s result flipped the script from the December battle in which Albemarle dominated for the majority of the afternoon.

 

“I thought the last time that we were here, we didn’t match their energy early,” Daly noted. “They shot really well last time, but they also beat us on the boards… We knew we had to equal their energy and play from there.”

 

Younger finished with a game-high 19 points, but did not score from the field in the final 16 minutes of play. Instead, the Charlottesville was far more balanced offensively for the stretch run of the contest.

 

Lakasia Calloway took on the role of energizer bunny for much of the second half, while registering the lion’s share of her 14 points in the last two quarters. Her backcourt mate, Kasey Lamb made life difficult for the Patriots and fished with nine points, while helping the Black Knights lead by as many as 12 in the third quarter.

 

After having yielded the spotlight to her teammates for all of the third and most of the fourth periods, Younger calmly sank a pair of free throws after the Patriots had cut the lead to just four with under two minutes to play.

 

With Albemarle keying in on Younger for the bulk of the second half, Daly was happy to have other heroes step up and carry the team when it counted.

 

“We’ve had like seven different girls lead the team in scoring in different games this year,” Daly said of his team’s balance offensively. “We’ve had like 10 or 11 girls in the scorebook some nights, so our depth is one of our strengths. We try to make sure that everybody is ready to go.”

 

After falling behind by 12 points early in the third quarter, the Patriots slowly chipped away at the deficit. A running layup by Haylee Howard-Radde with 3:30 left to play trimmed the Charlottesville lead to just five for the first time since the second quarter.

 

Then, roughly one minute later, Marquelah Wilson, who had been held in check for most of the second half, knocked down a pair of foul shots to pull AHS to within four.

 

Unfortunately for the Patriots, Wilson’s free throws represented her team’s final points, as the Black Knights converted from the charity stripe themselves on other end of the court to survive a late scare from the home team.

 

“I thought we did enough good things down the stretch to hold onto the lead,” Daly said. “I don’t know if we did a great job boxing out, because they were really tough on the boards… but our girls hung in there and we were able to generate some turnovers.”

 

Wilson led Albemarle with 12 points, while Markinna Winterton added 11, and Howard-Radde turned in 10.

 

The Patriots will look to rebound on Monday at home against Fluvanna, while Charlottesville will return to action on Tuesday at Louisa.

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