Uncle Mo can be a powerful friend and Saturday afternoon once the Momentum teamed up with the Lady Cavaliers 👩 it was all over for Lynchburg Christian Academy.

Trip #4 on the season of “Got Game, Will Travel” takes place today at roughly 2pm today @ Salem High School. The team and its fans have made treks to Lexington, Virginia , High Point North Carolina and the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee in order to find quality opponents. Today we add Salem, Virginia to the list – time to start the journey up the Blue Ridge Parkway. Will pick this up from Salem!

Tip time -1:35 pm

The start time had been posted as both 1:30 and 2:00 and it landed on the early side.

Jaelyn Hagee started the game in a manner that would make any basketball fan smile. Hagee scored 10 of the Cavs first 13 points, including a rainbow 🌈 3-pointer from the corner.

The defense held LCA to just six points in the opening frame.n

Fast forward to the 5:47 mark of the second quarter where Head Coach Mark Motley called a timeout. LCA had just made a 3-pointer to trim the lead to 18-13. 60 seconds later the team broke the huddle and just turned things up a notch.

The result was a 17-0 run 🏃‍♂️ for the remainder of the first half. 17-0….17-0……17-0 against a very talented team. Hagee leads the team in scoring with 14 while Alyssa Ervin has 8 but there has been plenty of help… 35-13 @ the Half

The 17-0 run 🏃‍♂️ turned into a 33-2 run 🏃‍♂️making the score 51-15 from 18-13.

Hagee is finished for the day late in the third quarter and sits down with 24 points.

Plenty of coverage to follow but the key 🔑 thing to remember from today is 33-2

Just for fun as I try to wrap up the coverage of the Day of Basketball 🏀 when four teams play.

Thankfully today is was only to Floyd so there’s only 60 minutes alloted to get over to the school.

First piece of business was to write ✍ a column on the question of is Floyd County High our biggest rival.

Head inside of the Gym at 4:00 ahead of a 4:30 Tip-off. Three things I try to capture a photo of at each game are the Jump Ball, Final Score and the Handshake 🤝 line because I like the Sportsmanship aspect.

The actual game action runs from 4:30 to 9:04 pm then there’s the 45 minutes back to Laurel Fork and the writing begins at 10:45.

Story #1 – Girls JV 10:45 -11:10 (25 minutes)

Story #2 – Boys JV 11:10 – 11:40 (30 Minutes)

Story #3 – Girls Varsity 11:40 – 12:25 am (45 minutes)

Story #4 – Boys Varsity 12:25 – 1:25 am (60 minutes)

Story #5 – This recap until 1:55

Story six will have to wait ✋ until tomorrow or should I say later today. I hope that everyone 🙏 that reads them appreciates the effort that our Student Athletes 👏 put forth in Floyd tonight.

It was Senior Night for a squad with six players graduating. The Gymnasium was without a doubt the best combination of crowd and sound of any this season and our Cavaliers were facing the hottest team in the Three Rivers District in the Floyd County 🐃🐃🐃.

Yes, Radford will take the title at 9-1 compared to Floyd’s 8-2 but it was FCHS that just hung that lone Loss on the Bobcats. The perfect storm was awaiting Coach Barnes and his team.

CCHS has pretty much had its way against all of the Non-District opponents this season but inside the league the team has played a number of games right up to the end but carried a 3-6 mark in to the league finale. A sweep of Alleghany (both in OT) and a split with James River but as Paul Harvey liked to say – Here’s the Rest of the Story:

In those six defeats the widest margin has been 10 points. Twice with Radford, twice with Glenvar and once each with Floyd County and James River. No Knockouts of this team, actual or by TKO. But tonight was going to be the ultimate test by a wide margin. As I mentioned in the Live Blog before the game there was two things that CCHS had to due, one being avoiding what I call a Dumptrucking start and two, keep our front court out of foul trouble.

Not only did we avoid a poor start, we jumped out to a 10-2 lead. Check the first box 📦 in a big way. You cannot Win a game in the first four minutes but you certainly can lose on in that window.

The Cavaliers held FCHS at bay until they surrendered the lead at 30-29 mid-way in the second quarter. Seven players had scored already and the amazing part of the second quarter was we only made one two point field goal during the eight minutes. Ethan Richardson made two 3-pointers and Bryce Smoot, Mario Meza Campbell and Brayden Smoot all added one from long distance.

Down only 39-38 at the half, the Cavaliers would next have to survive a Haymaker from the home team. Floyd wrapped eight points around a Bryce Smoot 3-pointer and the lead was quickly at six points.

Campbell answered with a jumper and Elijah Cox followed up with a 3-pointer and just like that the deficit was just 47-46. Bryce would add a reverse lay-up that I think he made without ever seeing the hoop. Trading basket for basket, going toe to toe in front of a Student section that was feeling the moment.

Up to this point the Cav had taken care of the foul trouble remarkably well. But at the 1:31 mark in the third quarter Cox picked up his 3rd foul and sadly just 17 seconds after he picked up foul #4.

Floyd immediately started to attack the bucket and just like that the lead was in double figures. Bryce connected on a buzzer beating 3-pointer to have the third quarter end at 58-51.

Davis Reitzel picked up his 4th foul 20 seconds into the final quarter then his fifth and final one at 4:46. Down 62-53 with Reitzel out and Cox limited on defense it would’ve appeared to be over. But Campbell and Richardson converted drive to the baskets and once again it was 63-57. Sadly, Campbell was whistled for his fourth foul but Bryce made the unquestionable shot of the night 🌙..

Brayden has missed on a jumper and Bryce went up for the rebound and while hanging in the air managed to get off a floater that found the bottom of the net. Bryce, all 5’7 of him. tried to carry his team to victory against the most physical team on the schedule. The sophomore finished with 23 points, including six down the stretch as he tried to will the team to victory. Floyd would push it back to 10 but the never say die Cavaliers would cut it back to six points. The final score goes in the books 📚 As 76-68 loss but once again this team with a Motto of Let’s Play for 32 minutes did just that.

CCHS (68) – Bryce Smoot 23, Mario Meza Campbell 12, Elijah Cox 11, Brayden Smoot 10, Ethan Richardson 8, Davis Reitzel 2. Jabin Talley 2.

The team returns home to host Blacksburg on Monday and travels to Galax on Thursday to wrap up their regular season.

Late in the first quarter CCHS led the Three Rivers District second best team 16-11. Was this going to be the night that a District foe would have a chance at the half ? Floyd County was 8-1 in league play coming in and they were playing at home in front of a rowdy crowd that was extra amped for two reasons – their opponent and Senior Day for the Boys.

Running out the clock at the end of the first quarter, Kalee Easter offered up a 3-pointer just before the horn that bounced on the rim three or four times before it finally dropped.

That basket was the start of what I would have to label 🏷 a basketball 🏀 clinic. When the dust settled six Cavaliers scored a combined 32 points while holding a good team to just nine.

Two things jumped out during the 32-9 run 🏃‍♂️- the first being the purcision that Coach Mark Motley”s team operated on the Buffaloes and the second one being the incredible play of Bella Crotts. The 5’10 Senior is usually the first player in off the bench and the confidence that she appears to be playing with as of late just gives any upcoming opponents of the Cavaliers one more match-up problem.

Once again the question would have to be which was the better team ? Was it the Carroll County offense or the Cavaliers defense ?

Let’s start with the defense, after allowing 11 points over the first eight minutes the unit surrendered just 20 points over the remaining 24 minutes. At some point I would like to research the average points scored by the opponent in our 10 District games.

Team defense is a term that I use a great deal when describing the Lady Cavaliers and its because its not like one or two players are playing ball hawking D, its five players all playing it at the same time.

Offensively eight of the 10 Cavs scored with a trio finishing in double figures. Alyssa Ervin poured in 18 points while Easter added 13 and Lauren Alley dropped in 12 points. Jaelyn Hagee added eight more and all four of them never saw the floor in the fourth quarter.

It would be easy enough to pick any of the four out but the most encouraging one would be the way that Alley cut to the basket on offense and controlled the boards on defense.

Ashton Richardson played the four quarter and guided the non-starters to a 7-7 draw with the Buffaloes over the final 8:00 minutes. Crotts and Katie Lam both added five points while Richardson scored three and Curdy Gardner finished with two points.

The Lady Cavaliers close out their regular season with a matinee performance at Salem High School.

Nobody knows what the path awaits this team in the post season as they look to defend their State Championship but this know…. the conversation that will take place in the Coaching rooms of the teams that will cross paths with this team.

Best of luck trying to find a weakness on either end of the floor !

The game later today vs LCA should be a nice test for our Lady Cavaliers 👩.