Charlottesville needed something, and quick. After a reasonable start to the first, the Black Knights saw Western Albemarle light it up from beyond the arc to take a good lead into the second quarter and stretch it out into double digits shortly after that. While the first battle between these two needed overtime, until Caleb Gage gave his team a jolt at the end of the second and the beginning of the third, that looked unlikely. But behind a 15-0 run to close the second and start the third, the Black Knights exploded in front of their home crowd. And then when his team had a healthy lead, Leon Straus went off to put an exclamation point on the 55-46 Charlottesville victory.
“I thought we did a much better job of being physical in the second half, just boxing out and contesting their shots,” said Black Knights coach Mitch Minor. “I’m really proud of the way we played our defense for the whole second half.”
The win launches Charlottesville a game ahead of Western in the Jefferson District standings. It was also something that Gage and his teammates had been waiting for for quite some time.
“I was thinking the whole time, ‘man, we can’t lose to them again, we’ve lost four straight,’” Gage said. “We just couldn’t lose again.”
For their part, the Warriors had a great start, with Jake Maynard and Eli Sumpter each knocking down a pair of three’s to put the visitors up 18-10. Western seemed in control with the pace of the game going surprisingly slow as both teams fought through the bonus, but everything changed after the small CHS run to close the second, and then for sure after the break.
“I was proud of the way we played to start the first half, this is a tough environment to play in,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “I have no idea what happened in the beginning of that third quarter though. We just stopped playing. I have no idea why, but our body language completely changed and we were still ahead. I had to call a timeout there to remind them that.”
A 5-0 run on a layup, steal and 3-point play all from Gage brought the gym to life and when Kendall Dennis gave Charlottesville it’s first lead since the opening moments of the first quarter, there was no looking back.
“We just became loose and that was it,” Gage said. “We got up and then there was no need to rush shots. We could be patient.”
Western’s presence inside was still strong on the glass, but put backs and easy buckets underneath all but dried up. The Warriors 3-point shooting cooled down, and on the other side the Black Knights starting make things happen with their vaunted transition game fueled by it’s press. Chase Stokes ended the Western drought in the third with a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to one, but there would be no lead change as the fourth quarter belonged to Straus.
“Coach told me to keep my head up and fight through (some early struggles) and so that’s what I tried to do,” Straus said. “We came out after halftime and played our game, played defense and that led to the easy buckets. First we had to get physical with their big men and offer help on defense and out of that came the offense.”
With 11 points of his game high 26 points coming in the fourth, a pair of dunks from Straus, one with two minutes to play and the other with just seconds left on the clock put Western too far out of reach to try and foul its way back into the contest. The Black Knights held a three and four possession lead for the bulk of the fourth quarter and were able to put the game away cleanly.
Straus finished with a 3-pointer in each from to pace the way to his 26. Finishing just behind in scoring was Gage who added 13.
For Western, Maynard had a team best 11 points while Stokes and Sumpter added nine and seven respectively.
The Warriors jump right back into action today at home with Louisa County. It marks a stretch where four of the next five games Western plays at home after a lengthy part of its JD schedule on the road and is capped with a critical meeting with Albemarle on February 7th.
“We’re in a spot now where we need to get hot and run the table to have any shot to win the District,” Maynard said. “But we also need to do it to improve our conference seeding.”
Charlottesville plays four games in the next week starting with a road trip to Powhatan on Monday. The Black Knights have the bottom five teams in the JD standings left to play with the most crucial game likely being its February 4th trip to Fluvanna County. The Flucos victory over Western to start January is the difference right now between the Black Knights and the Warriors in the standings.
