A lot of people in the local basketball community, including Fluvanna County coach Munro Rateau felt like Albemarle’s boys basketball team was going to be the squad to beat in the Jefferson District coming out of the gate.
“They didn’t do anything tonight to show me they weren’t,” said Fluvanna coach Munro Rateau.
Albemarle rolled 70-49 past the Flucos, jumping out to a 27-8 lead in the first quarter that they never relinquished, despite running into some foul trouble.
“When we got in such foul trouble (in the second quarter) that guys had to come in and contribute,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “That’s what I’m proud of, the contributions to help the starters out when they were in foul trouble.”
Albemarle’s Austin Katstra fueled much of that early onslaught, scoring 15 of his 17 points in the first quarter. The sophomore continued his emergence as one of the area’s best big men, posting nine rebounds on the night to go with his 17-point outing.
“We strive to be a total team but he can be a special player,” Maynard said. “By the end of this season he’ll be one of the best sophomore players in the state. He’s got some talent.”
Katstra and the rest of the Patriots’ height allowed them to attack and throw over Fluvanna’s 1-3-1 zone with defensive standout Vinny Agee at the top. Albemarle knew going into the contest that solving that zone was going to be key to picking up a win.
“I scouted them Saturday when they played Amherst and their zone looked real, real good so basically that was all we worked on in practice,” Maynard said. “You could see when they went man-to-man we looked pretty sloppy and that was because I said you all have been playing man-to-man for three weeks now and we’re going to work on this zone. We had a pretty good plan and for this game it worked.”
Juwan Carter finished with a team-high 19 points for the Patriots as he exploded for a strong scoring night after anchoring Albemarle defensively in its first two wins last week. Jake Hahn scored 12 points, with a pair of second quarter 3-pointers providing half that total. He also hauled in seven boards on the night. Cartier Key chipped in four assists off the bench and starting point guard Kennedy Brown had three assists. Key also had eight points including two 3-pointers.
While the final result was lopsided, Fluvanna did manage to play the Patriots even for the final three quarters, with Agee generating the bulk of the offense. Agee finished with 26 points, including a remarkable 18-for-19 night at the free throw line.
“They were just so much more physical than us and we just kind of stood around and backed away from them,” Rateau said. “I thought we played better after that. I thought after we settled down — which took us forever — I thought we did a pretty good job of hanging in there. We’re struggling shooting the ball right now.”
Albemarle will try and build on the momentum when it hosts Charlottesville Friday night while the Flucos will try and get back on track against Orange on the road the same night.
