Need to tie 👔 up a couple of loose ends before I jump into the fun with the game.
First, I need to publicly say Thank You to Paula Richardson as her act of kindness allowed me to drive 🚗 straight from Johnson City, Tennessee to Glenvar. Paula grabbing Linda and bringing her to the game is what allowed me to watch the JV game tonight.
Second, I would like to do a quick reset on the amount of attention that we pay to the JV teams as a whole and Boys 👦 Basketball 🏀 in particular. We see our selves as Champions of Equality so we go out of our way to cover any JV team that is interested in being treated as an equal.
The reason its so fun for me is its not going anywhere but my site and to the families of the players so I can use themes in telling the stories. We wrote an actual screen play once, used a Chicago Bulls reference, Waffle 🧇 House once and last time it was Marvel Super Heroes.
Assistant Coach Ryan Largen, who for casting purposes tonight will be Doctor Strange, mentioned he heard at least one Thor comment in the lockeroom so let’s continue with the Stan Lee theme.
Something popped tonight versus the Highlanders and it was the level of Coaching from both sides. It truly was next level X’s and O’s. To appreciate the effort we first must go back to the first Glenvar game, when the Highlanders dropped 18 3-pointers in a lopsided 87-51 victory. It was the only game that Carroll County had zero shot to win in the final quarter.
Just over a week later and minus Dane ” Thor ” Leonard, who is recovering from an ankle injury, there was little reason to believe that the Cavaliers would fair much better. Enter Head Coach Jason Stockner as Bruce Banner / Incredible Hulk. Pure genius in his plan to challenge every 3-pointer taken in the first half.
At the break Carroll County led 29-19 after holding Glenvar to just 4 of 15 from deep. Chanson Rakes slid into the starting lineup in place of Leonard and for the opening 14 minutes everything worked to perfection for Carroll County.
Rakes, for tonight will fill the role of Hawkeye, looked very comfortable out there and had nine points at the break. Hayden ” Ironman ” Jackson dropped 11 in the first half and Colton “🕷Spiderman” Gravley also reached double figures with 10 first half points. Blake ” Captain America” Reed added seven of the 39 points.
Glenvar Head Coach Rich Drew opened the third quarter with a counter attack. Drew had his team abandon the deep ball attempts and focus on driving to the basket. Glenvar went 1 of 5 from behind the arc but outscored the Cavaliers 23-10 in the third quarter. A 10 point lead quickly became a six point deficit before Gravley cut ✂️ it in half with an And One just ahead of the buzzer.
The fourth quarter was back and forth throughout, with Gravley (19 points) pulling the Cavaliers even at 57-57 and Reed (12 points) giving CCHS its final lead at 59-57. Glenvar would score the next seven points until Jackson (18 points) banked in a 3-pointer to cut it to 64-62.
Glenvar iced the game with five late free throws to create the 69 – 64 final score. Rakes ( Ant 🐜 Man, maybe) reached 11 points to give Carroll County a quartet of players in double figures. The team will have a few days to rest up now after playing back to back weeks of three games. The Highlanders were fortunate enough that they didn’t have to face Thor’s Hammer…
Coach Stockner is on Bus 🚌 driving duty tonight so I will add his thoughts here later, once he has safely 🙏 made it back home.
Carroll County 16. 23 10. 15 – 64
Glenvar High 14 15 23. 17 – 69
Varsity gamer up next…
Final 3-pointer stats for Glenvar (7-27, 25.9%). Well Done by our D
As promised : Coach Stockner :
Tough loss tonight at Glenvar. We started off well with a 2 point lead after the first and had an excellent second quarter to build a 10 point lead at the half. We limited our turnovers and played good man to man defense. We also shot the ball well and our defensive rebounding was much improved tonight. In the second half we still played well just didn’t shoot as good as the first half. If we could’ve had a few more shots to fall in the third quarter we definitely could’ve came out on top.
Thank You Coach !
A.S.P.N on The Hill 