Over the last half decade in particular, Western Albemarle’s boys basketball team has been used to confident, level-headed guards who can handle big moments. They had one for four years in Ryan Ingram, then Chris McGahren took the mantle for a stretch.
For current guard Riley Prichard, that confidence wasn’t immediately a part of his makeup — it has been forged over time. Friday night, it took a huge leap forward in a 49-47 victory.
“He’s been practicing a lot and you can obviously see it on the court, he’s a great player and he stepped up in a huge moment for us,” said Western standout Tommy Mangrum. “I think that’ll help him in the future.”
Prichard took control of the ball with about 10 seconds to play and drove to his right before diving down the lane and knocking down the gamewinner with 3.7 seconds to play.
“I saw an opening and just put up a pretty confident shot and it happened to go in,” Prichard said.
Prichard’s increased confidence didn’t just show in that critical moment, he’d been locked in the entire game in front of a deafening atmosphere created by both schools turning out raucous student sections. Prichard scoring 17 points to match Mangrum’s own 17 (that also came with eight rebounds) and was calling his own number more often than usual.
“We’re super confident in his ability to handle things, he made a bunch of big plays down the stretch, not just the last one,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “He’s pretty crafty and he was confident tonight, he actually requested a couple of his plays and that’s a real growth thing for him. He wanted the ball in his hands.”
That was critical for a Western squad that followed up a tremendous first half effort where they held Albemarle to just 12 points with a less impressive second half that allowed the Patriots to claw back into things. Albemarle turned up the pressure in the second half and the Warriors struggled at times to handle it, turning it over repeatedly after the break as Albemarle found a defensive approach that worked and created some offense.
“I just think we didn’t stand up to the challenge in the first half, we were playing scared,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “We just didn’t execute, (Western) totally out played but we got on them at halftime and they responded. It’s early and we have a lot of new players and we haven’t had any easy ones.”
Wilson Haden and Josh Morse did most of the offensive lifting, scoring 15 points a piece, with Hagen knocking down a huge 3-pointer with under two minutes to play to tie the game at 45-45. Western responded with Josh Sime knocking down two free throws to make it 47-45 and then Morse had a putback to tie the game again with 41.4 seconds left.
Western took the ball on offense and looked to melt some clock while getting a good shot. Albemarle defended well, and Prichard was forced to hit a tough one on his drive, falling out of bounds as it arced toward the net and the win.
Western got six rebounds from Henry Sullivan and two steals each from Sime (who also had eight points) and Andrew Shifflett. The Warriors also drew a rash of charges in the first half, including two by Shifflett.
“There’s a lot of things we need to work on,” Mangrum said. “We kind of lost our poise in the third quarter but it was good that we were able to gut it out and get the win.”
Both squads gets a week-long break until December 20 when the Patriots will take on Charlottesville at CHS while Western travels to take on Monticello.
