Western Albemarle’s offensive system is fine-tuned for balance. It isn’t meant to produce a lot of high individual scorers, it isn’t really designed to feed one player, it’s set up to take advantage of whatever the open look is, whatever the defense gives the Warriors.
In fact, earlier this season, senior Ryan Ingram switched spots in the regimented system to get some better looks, moving off his traditional point guard role. What Ingram has done in his career, he’s done within the system.
That’s what makes it impressive that Ingram, a point guard who has played that role since he was a freshman, has poured in a school record 1,222 points.
“He never gets out of the system,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “We’re designed to have a lot of balance, he’s had an amazing career.”
He became the program’s all-time leading scorer with 17 points against Orange County in Western’s 68-32 victory over the Hornets.
Ingram passed Billy Baber on the all-time list with a fourth quarter free throw.
“Our system gives us a great opportunity to score, it’s just countless hours working, getting chemistry with our teammates,” Ingram said. “I couldn’t have done it without my coaches giving me an opportunity as a freshman and I couldn’t have done it without my teammates.”
Throw in the fact that he’s in position to finish as either the program’s all-time assists leader or at least as the runner-up? It’s one of the area’s most productive, balanced careers no matter how you slice it.
Against the Hornets, the Warriors (15-3) got going in a big way out of the gate, jumping out to a 26-12 lead after building an 11-0 advantage from the opening tip. Orange recovered and played better after that opening stretch, but the initial hole made it tough for the Hornets to claw back into the game.
“I looked at my kids and I said we have two options, we can fight back or we can die down right here and my kids did a good job of settling in,” said Orange coach Adam Utz. “I wrote two numbers on the board (in the locker room before the game), 4 (Ingram) and 21 (Josh Coffman) and both killed us tonight. They’re tough.”
In addition to his scoring, Ingram was distributing well (five assists to go with his 17 points) and Josh Coffman was on fire early, finishing with 14 points including four 3-pointers. Jed Strickland also made a big push with 16 points and five boards. Garrett Payne finished with nine points and five boards and Austin Cress had six points and seven rebounds.
Jordan Shook had nine points for the Hornets to lead the way offensively.
Ingram wasn’t overly concerned with the record and hadn’t given it a ton of thought.
“It wasn’t really in my mind at all,” Ingram said. “I didn’t even know I needed 16 points coming into tonight.”
It turns out that reaching that milestone and piling up those wins is far from mutually exclusive. Not with a player that makes as few mistakes and plays as sound as Ingram. His points don’t come because he forces it or tries to take over.
“He’s such a great teammate,” Maynard said. “Where does that ever happen in high school basketball, your all-time leading scorer has a chance to be your all-time assist man too? I’ve said this before, but he conducts himself around his teammates like he’s the 12th man on the team.”
In the process he’s become the program’s No. 1 man.
