Photo 📷 Credit : Bill Gallimore
Christiansburg – Carroll County Varsity Boys Basketball improved to 3-0 on the young season, including 2-0 on the road, by defeating Christiansburg 80-63 in non-district play.
The opening two minutes went as poorly as it could on both ends of the floor for the Cavaliers. Defensively they allowed CHS to score on three straight possessions with drives to the basket and offensively they had one turnover and two shots blocked.
Trailing 6-0 it would have been easy to panic on the court or for Head Coach Anthony Barnes to burn a timeout to settle things down.
Cody Reece (15 points) finally got CCHS on the scoreboard with a pair of free throws and Isaiah Easter (14 points) added two of his 10 made free throws to tie the score at 11-11. Reece put the Cavaliers ahead for the first time with his next basket and the team would never trail again.
Carroll County tightened up defensively and a 14-2 run 🏃♂️ spanning the opening two quarters pushed the lead out to 25-13. At that point it appeared the Cavaliers were on their way to a blowout victory.
The Blue Demons strung together a run of their own late in the first half. The lead was down to 35-30 when Senior Ethan Richardson (Game high 21 points) was fouled while attempting a last second 3-pointer.
Richardson calmly dropped all three foul shots to push the lead back out to 38-30 at the break.
” We finally snapped out of our sluggishness. Multiple guys really stepped up tonight, led by Ethan with 21. Bryce (Smoot) pitched in with 17,” said Assistant Coach Kris Richardson. ” Great overall team win. Trace(Reavis), Landon (Puckett), and Jay( Burnette) gave good minutes tonight, playing both tough and physical.”
While the opening two minutes of the second half were not quite as slow for CCHS, they did allow the home team to tighten the game. The lead was down to 41-39 before the Cavs kicked into overdrive once again.
The 17-4 run 🏃♂️ was picture perfect in that great defense created easy offense for Carroll County. Unselfish play offensively once again left the team with four scorers in double figures.
The lead capped at 69-49 with just over three minutes remaining. Barnes inserted some players that were seeing their first Varsity action and Christiansburg kept playing at full speed and quickly cut the lead to 73-60
A couple of tweaks to the lineup settled things down and the third straight victory to open the season included four points by Puckett and two points by Landon Phillips. Brayden Smoot rounded out the scoring with seven points in addition to distributing the basketball.
“Only missed 11 FT, but made 20. It’s still not great but better than 19 misses, ” Richardson added. “We had 15 turnovers, which isn’t terrible, but under 12 is our goal. All of our players played tonight”.
In the Junior Varsity game Carroll County dropped a hard fought game 57-56. The two teams went back and forth throughout with the home team prevailing at the end.
The team are scheduled to return to action on Saturday in Dublin as part of the annual four game basketball festival. Varsity edged Pulaski County in the opener while the JV fell short.
A.S.P.N on The Hill 