Photo 📷 Credit : Samantha Lark – Smith

The Fort : For the second consecutive game, Anthony Barnes looked up at the Fort Chiswell scoreboard and found his Cavaliers down by double figures in the opening six minutes of play. To his credit, Barnes just continued to coach up his team and led them to a 80 – 47 victory over Bland High School.

The victory moves Carroll County to 4-3 and playing for the consolation crown👑 Tuesday afternoon.

Against Narrows High in the opening round, Carroll County erased the huge deficit and took a nine point lead of their own before falling 69 – 65. This time around, the run every chance you can Cavaliers didn’t stop until there was no doubt in the outcome.

All 11 Cavaliers played and for the first time this season all 11 dented the scorebook. Isaiah Easter once again led the team in scoring with 27 points and a little bit of more

in our Senior was joined by multiple others in double figures.

Colton Gravley opened the game by drawing a charge and hit the floor hard. The immediate thought was there goes the Sunday Morning stitches. Gravley finished the contest with 16 points but would need a quick touch up to his face before knocking down his two free throws in the second quarter.

We will await the unofficial Medical 🚑 report tomorrow morning. One of the fun baskets 🧺 for Easter was after a steal and breakaway where their was certainly some lift-off.

Back to the is this really happening again start to the game. At 1:42 of the first quarter against Narrows the deficit was 18-3 and at 2:07 against Bland it was 16 -4. Carroll County strung together a 30 – 6 run 🏃‍♂️ to close out the first half and the Cavaliers kept on keeping on after the break.

Blake Reed scored eight of his 11 points after halftime and Hayden Jackson dropped eight of his 10 points in the second half as well.

While I’m not sure if Barnes has seen Groundhog Day twenty seven times like I have but Coach didn’t hesitate to use an analogy in his take on the latest victory.

”  Welcome to the roller coaster ride of high school basketball, its crazy at times We just too slow to start, and it’s all bucket driven I feel like .Once we get some shots going and some stops we get rolling into transition, which thats when I think we look our best.

    I challenged them individually and as a team on what we have to fix and correct to be successful moving forward. Some of the fixes showed tonight and defensive wise we still gotta move better talk and control the boards, a Coach has to be happy when everyone scores and gets time in a game , we were very unselfish the last Quarter and part of the third.Easter with double 27 pts, 10 assits along with 5 steals 6 rebounds.

   Placed three other guys in double figures Hayden Jackson with solid game 10 pts coming off the bench, which most of the time will win you high school games. Looking forward to hopefully finishing up strong with another win tomorrow night to end on a high note before going in District play. LET KEEP WORKING CAVS !”

In honor of the entire team scoring, let’s list them all ! Trace Reavis finished with four points and six others netted two points….

Will Motley, Eli Lark, Kyle Bunn,  Landon Phillips, Landon Kinder and  Isaiah Leagans rounded out the scoring column.

Carroll County… 12  22. 23. 23. – 80

Bland High.    …. 17   5  11.  14  – 47

Carroll County JV Boys fell short versus Radford, 57 – 31 but will have one more opportunity to earn their fourth victory when they face the host Pioneers at 1:30 pm on Tuesday afternoon.

5:30 pm for Varsity on Tuesday versus East Wilkes, who defeated Galax 70 -59 in the game prior to the Cavaliers took the floor.