In game where both coaches came away scratching their heads between turnovers and missed layups, it was Louisa County that was able wipe its brow and breathe easy afterwards as a late rally pushed them out and in front to hang on and beat Orange County, 53-51 on the road.
“We had a heavy week in practice where we just stressed defense, that’s something we haven’t done well at so far,” said Lions coach Brian Wilson. “In practice, sometimes it looks like our defense is better than it really is, so we got in there and played as coaches, not giving the defense any break and force them to close out. We made our mistakes out there, but we hung in.”
Down by six with just two minutes to go, a layups in transition from Lions guard Adam Williams and Chris Robinson fueled the comeback. And thanks to some free throw shooting in the last seconds of play, Louisa dug out of the hole to get out in front.
“We locked down and played hard, hit the open layups there and just played our game after that,” Williams said. “It was good ball movement, locking down on defense and hitting the layups (that made the difference).”
There was plenty of drama in the final fifteen seconds of play with Orange getting a great look on an inbounds pass but a shot underneath the basket just missing to force overtime.
“There was too many turnovers there in the fourth quarter,” said Hornets coach Keyode Rogers. “Anybody turning the ball over like that, it’s hard to win.”
Louisa worked its way out of two significant Orange leads. The first time around, the Lions were down 17-9 going into the second quarter, but a 14-6 run that stretched through most of the frame allowed the visitors to lock the game up at 23 thanks largely to its ball pressure. Orange took at 4-point lead heading into the break, and little changed in the third quarter where the Lions went in fourth down by three.
“We haven’t been great on offense so you have to even better on defense when that happens,” Wilson said. “We hadn’t really been good at either so far so that’s why we’ve been on the short end of things, but I told my guys that we have to get to the point of not worry about anyone else, just focusing on us and doing things right.”
Orange seized a 48-42 advantage with just over two minutes to go, but after that Louisa’s defense came to the rescue and Adam’s finishes on the break kept that from going to waste.
Williams led all scorers with 16 points on the night, and after that it was all balance with four players scoring six or more points including a 7-point effort from Robinson.
For the Hornets, Jacob Pugh led the way on offense with 13 points while Corey Johnson added 11. Damion Clark chipped in eight points including a clutch 3-pointer late in the fourth.
“The bottom line is when you’re out there playing, you’re playing,” Rogers said. “The layups, we’ve got to hit them. The turnovers, we’ve got to cut down on them.”
Louisa (2-5) heads to Courtland on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Orange (2-4) hosts Colonial Forge on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
