Carroll County JV entered the week with three games on their schedule 📅 and Monday night in the Highlands was a doozy. The Cougars held on for a 51-48 victory and we will be working on our coverage throughout the night.
We will start out with The Book 📖 and the thoughts of Head Coach Jason Stockner…
” What a game! Very exciting down the stretch if we could’ve made a couple more shots and a couple more defensive rebounds. I think we would’ve been the JV team leaving the gym tonight with the 11-3 record, instead we get a hard fought L. We got off to a great start but I need to make quicker adjustments once they started breaking our press. The guys battled for the entire game and made some excellent plays throughout! We just came up a few play short tonight.”
There will be much more on this exciting tilt so I encourage people to check back.
Covington – Carroll County closed out a high energy game on a 9-3 run over the final 63 seconds to defeat Alleghany High School, 72-65 Monday night. The Cavaliers (15-0, 4-0 Three Rivers District) went a perfect 5 for 5 at the free throw line to pull away with Center Cody Reece starting the close out with an and one and Bryce Smoot scoring the final four points to ice the game.
” Cody really kept his composure tonight, especially after getting into early foul trouble,” Head Coach Anthony Barnes said. ” Once we put him back in there he didn’t miss a beat out there.”
Reece broke a 63-63 tie 👔 with his old fashion 3-point play. The senior finished the contest with 14 points and 9 rebounds, just missing another double double.
The Cougars (11-5) refused to go away quietly and the possessions between 59-59 and 63-63 belong on an instructional video on how to perform in crunch time but the home team finally ran out of ⛽gas.
Ethan Richardson finished the night with 12 points, including eight in the fourth quarter. His two free throws followed the Reece play and pushed Alleghany to a must foul mind set.
Bryce Smoot stood at the same end of the court he did as a Sophomore, trying to win a game with free throws. While his victoreas efforts back then were unique, tonight’s pair were pure nylon. The guard finished with a game high 26 points.
Both teams ended the game with four players in double figures and for 59 minutes it was as close as a ballgame can be.
Carroll County trailed 57 – 53 until Bryce Smoot scored an and one and followed it up with a perfect pass to Richardson in the corner to give the Cavaliers the lead at 59-57.
” In the huddle Coach Barnes drew up a play that would give us a lay-up or a good look at a 3-pointer,” said Assistant Coach Kris Richardson. “Bryce threw a perfect pass that hit Ethan in his shooting pocket.”
The third key 🔑 to the game was team free throw shooting as the Cougars left eight points at the charity stripe. CCHS finished up with 11 of 13.
” We beat a good team tonight that plays a very physical brand of basketball,” added Barnes. Every time we come up here we know exactly what to expect.”
Isaiah Easter finished with 16 points, with eight coming in the third quarter. Once again the Cavaliers won because of unselfish offense and tenacious defense
Carroll County JV Boys 👦 had their winning streak end in a 51-48 setback to the Cougars. Dane Leonard led the offense with 14 points and was joined in double figures by Colton Gravley with 10 points.
Both teams will continue with their busy week on Wednesday evening when they welcome Glenvar to The Hill.
Inside of 60 minutes before our Junior Varsity teams begin play ▶️. The Boys 👦 here in Alleghany and the Girls 👧 back on The Hill….
Our 4 teams will play a combined 16 quarters of Basketball 🏀 tonight and the goal is to capture the score at each break. Obviously I have the eight up here covered so here’s hoping that someone back home 🏡 will help out there.
Warmups….
Up for the night 🌙
Like this – display case showing every 1,000 point scorer in School 🏫 History and the year they graduated 🎓Play ▶️ Ball
We have started !
End of 1st – Boys JV lead 19-12 (5:47)
Vickey Ritchie with an update!Marion Harris
Halftime for the Boys 👦, leading 25-24 at 6pm…
Halftime back on The Hill
9/20
End of 3rd up here – Cavs 36-34 (6:25pm)
End 3rd, back home 🏡Girls 👧 Final
Just ended up here, Cougars 51-48 Cavs 48.
7pm – Varsity games in 20 minutes.
Hopefully Bill has a better one…
End of 1st quarter – Cougars 18-16
Halftime (7:47 pm), Cavaliers 28-26
Late first half in the Girls 👧 game, CCHS down 37-7
Girls trail 44-16 @ Half
Boys tied at 44, end of 3rd
Back Home 🏡
Quiet possibly the Best High School 🏫 game that I have seen in a decade !!!
Thank you to Greg Talley 🙏 for sending me this Photo 📷 from yesterday afternoon…
I cannot hide from the fact that somedays you wake up feeling older than others and today I one of those days. Spending all day Saturday trying to keep up with Kris Richardson is catching up with me and when you add the amount of energy that goes into assisting Vickey Ritchie it = A Great kind of tired / old.
Enough about feeling old – Let’s take a look at what is on the schedule for today.
Magna Vista will travel across Lovers Leap this afternoon to compete with our Lady 👩 Cavaliers with the action 🎬 beginning at 5:30. Both teams will take the court with the Varsity following the Junior Varsity.
The JV team enters the day having won two of their last three and will be looking to keep the momentum going versus MV.
The Varsity team played their most complete game of their season last time out and look to turn the corner on their home court.
The flip side of playing on The Hill is going to the Highlands to face Alleghany. The loop sits in between 8 and 11 hours if you are a player or Coach going up for both games.
The drive 🚗 up is never the issue in my mind because there’s a game to look forward to and plenty of scenery to soak in. But the drive home is simply not fun as you’re at the end of the day, its dark and you get to dodge deer.
The Junior Varsity team picked up their 10th victory on Saturday against visiting Galax and they were firing on all cylinders, both offensively and defensively. Don’t forget the fact that it looks like they are having fun out there. This will be the first of two contests against the Cougars inside of a small window.
Anthony Barnes has his Cavaliers sitting at 14-0 heading into the nightcap. The Hype train 🚂🚆 is running at an impressive rate of speed but they’re will be challenges tonight.
Playing at AHS is the biggest obstacle remaining in the regular season as you go into it knowing that you will have a limited amount of crowd support due to the logistics of getting there and back, especially on a work day.
This game needs to be played by a self motivated group and I think they will be up to the challenge but it wouldn’t hurt if every Parent in our section brought the energy of five or six people.
When you add in the fact that Alleghany doesn’t use the Network, its even harder for our fans to follow along.
The Girls will look to protect our Hill and the Boys will look to survive the Cougars den. Should be a fun day, even for a guy feeling like Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction
Have yourself a Blessed Day and if you get a chance later, shout out Go Cavs !
A.S.P.N on The Hill 