This just in, Carroll County High School 🏫 Boys 👦 Basketball 🏀 now has an official HYPE BUS 🚌 and its stock full of A-List Celebrities !!!

Who needs a Hype Train 🚂🚆 when a SpongeBob driven Hype Bus would be more fun.

  The Bus 🚌 will once again depart The Hill this coming Wednesday afternoon for the trek up and over to Radford.

5:30 p.m. is the start time as the Junior Varsity team will go Big Game hunting in the Den of Bobcats. Great seats 💺 are still available, on both the Hype Bus 🚌 and the games !!!!

Coach West Long has checked in from the House of Bobcats to tell us that all of his Wrestlers have made weight and are ready to get started at 9:00 am !

We will circle back here as the results become available !

Glenvar – Bryce Smoot played offense, Isaiah Easter played defense, Cody Reece played wisely, Ethan Richardson played with the timing of a Rolex watch and Brayden Smoot looked like the Everready Bunny as the starting lineup combined to defeat Glenvar 77-69 Friday night.

Victory number 19 kept the Cavaliers atop the Three Rivers District standings in addition to avenging the lone blemish on their sparkling 19-1 mark (8-1 TRD).

Since defeating Carroll County on The Hill to move into first place, the Highlanders have dropped three straight games to fall into fourth place. The Cavaliers will now switch gears ⚙ and become fans of Glenvar as they play a make-up game Monday night versus Alleghany. AHS (6-2)  is the lone team within one game of Carroll County in the loss column.

The rematch promised to be a nail 💅 biter and lived up to it plus some. Add in the fact that rotation player Trace Reavis was out with an injury, leaving the starters and Landon Puckett to divide the 160 minutes

Puckett played some key minutes and drilled a clutch 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter, pushing the Cavs lead out to 54-43. The  remaining 74 points went to the starting lineup.

The first quarter was like to heavyweight boxers getting loose and the Cavaliers were ahead on points, 18-16 behind both Bryce Smoot and Easter scoring six each in the opening eight minutes.

The next eight minutes set the stage as Glenvar strung together a 9-3 run, appearing to pull away before CCHS countered back with an 11-0 run to close out the half. Ethan Richardson (17 points) had been scoreless until the Cavs held for a final shot. The Senior swished a 3-pointer with 0:05.0 on the clock ⏰.

  Amazingly, Richardson would hit the exact same shot with the same time remaining to end the third quarter and proceeded to close out the fourth quarter with a lay-up.

Getting back to the third quarter, the two teams continued to trade hot stretches as the Cavaliers fought to retain the lead they had worked all night for. The quarter ender #2 and the opening of the final frame by Puckett finally gave Carroll County a double digit lead. But the next whistle was foul number four on Reece at 6:42 remaining.

  Setting the stage for the final 6:42, its time to factor in the atmosphere in the Gymnasium. This fact was not lost on Head Coach Anthony Barnes.

” First and foremost I gotta thank Cavalier Nation for coming up and supporting this group, that was huge,” noted Barnes. ” Second thought is just how Tough , Determined and Hungry this group is. In pregame you could tell they were ready for battle and locked in. I told them yesterday that this would be huge and make a statement in the District hunt .”

  Reece first and then Easter, were both giving up inches and pounds to quite possibly the most talented player the team will face this year. Brody Dawyot is listed as 6’6 and the Junior doubles as the starting Quarterback of the highly successful Highlanders football team. Easter netted 18 points on the evening but the effort against Dawyot was equally important.

Back to Reece playing smart, after a brief rest after the fourth foul, he managed to avoid foul number five. This became an even greater challenge late in the game when Dawyot was using his size on every possession in hopes of willing his team to a comeback.

Bryce Smoot finished with 14 points after the break and 24 on the night while twin Brother Brayden Smoot might have shed five pounds with his nonstop effort on both ends.

” Tonight we showed just how tough and gritty we are,” added Barnes. “They never lost composure, the played with intensity and stayed focused and under control in a very physical battle. We changed up on our defensive strategy and its due to film and breaking them down. Coach Richardson spent alot of time breaking down film to find some sort of edge. Brody is tough but Isaiah and Cody made him earn everything he got. Landon Puckett gave us some HUGE minutes. We controlled the boards through out 33 combined for starters. We had 12 steals also, 4 by Easter
, 3 by Ethan , 2 by Bryce and 3 by Brayden.

   When you do this with effort and flat out laying everything on the line you will WIN and they done just that. I am so proud of them , I blessed by a great group of kids and Coaches ! HOW ABOUT THEM CAVS !”

After playing six games across the past 11 days, the Cavaliers will have a break before returning to action 🎬 next Wednesday at Radford. The match-up will be the third one of the season as the two teams met in the Fort Chiswell Christmas tournament in addition to the district games.

The Junior Varsity team went toe to toe with Glenvar before falling late, 69-64. Four starters finished up in double figures, led by Colton Gravley (19 points) and Hayden Jackson (18 points). Blake Reed added 12 points and Chanson Rakes dropped 11 points filling in for injured starter Dane Leonard.

Friday night was the rare occasion that had both the Girls and Boys slated to play.

The Girls JV team missed an opportunity to play yet again, this time because Martinsville doesn’t have a JV squad.

The Varsity team played a strong first half, leading at the break 15-13. Martinsville pulled away in the third quarter with a 17-5 spurt and finished up with a 39-23 victory.

Carroll County…  5. 10. 5. 3 –  23

Martinsville……..  5  8   17  9 – 37

CC Mitchell led the offense with eight points and Natalie Burress chipped in five points.

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 !