The Albemarle boys basketball team was guaranteed of a return to the state tournament regardless of result in Thursday’s Region 5A North clash with Wakefield.
That fact didn’t matter to the Patriots.
Trailing at halftime, Albemarle used a 23-2 run spanning the third and fourth quarters to break open what had been a tight game, then held off a late charge from the Warriors in a 82-70 win to advance to the Region 5A North final Saturday night against Potomac. Albemarle also won its school-record 26th game this season in the process.
Austin Katstra poured in 26 points while J’Quan Anderson added 14 and Na’il Arnold 13 in the victory. Meanwhile, the Patriots’ work on the defensive end picked up in the second half and they were able to hang with the fast-paced Warriors, scoring numerous baskets on outlet passes.
“They like to run, they like to get up and down,” Albemarle coach Greg Maynard said. “We’ve had a lot of games this year where we’ve gotten out and ran too. Some teams don’t allow it. In the second half I thought we played much better defense.”
After scoring the first nine points of the run in the last half of the third quarter, the Patriots got a three from Katstra to open the fourth and also made seven of 10 free throws during the onslaught. By the time Wakefield’s Halil Parks hit a three to stop the bleeding, Albemarle had turned a 47-40 deficit into a 63-52 lead midway through the fourth.
“We mostly just wanted to run our offense,” Katstra said. “It turned out that I and others got a lot of points on the fast break.”
The lead got as large as 17 before Wakefield began to chip away, cutting the lead to eight, but the Patriots went 6-of-8 from the line in the final minute to seal the game.
The first half was back-and-forth, with Wakefield’s five-point margin being either team’s largest of the half. Anderson gave the Patriots a boost in the first quarter with a pair of three-pointers, but Parks had 10 points in the frame to lead his team back to a 19-19 tie after trailing most of the period.
The seesaw continued through much of the second quarter until Ben Horsford broke a 30-30 by banking in a three-pointer, and after the Patriots cut the margin to one, Alan Treakle converted two layups in five seconds sandwiched around an untimely AHS turnover for a 39-34 Wakefield lead at the half.
“The first half I didn’t know if we could stop them,” Maynard said. “We made some mistakes and gave them some extra baskets at the end of both quarters, they were getting in the gaps of our defense, but fortunately we were scoring enough to stay close.”
Parks led Wakefield with 20 points while Treakle had 16. The Warriors, who have also clinched a berth in the state tournament, will face Potomac Falls on Saturday in the regional third-place game.
