By Allen J. Kha / ScrimmagePlay.com contributor
Two minutes and 20 seconds into the first quarter of the Jefferson District semifinal matchup between second-seeded Charlottesville and third-seeded Orange, the two teams were knotted up at five points apiece.
The Black Knights then embarked on a 21-0 run in the next eight minutes of Thursday evening’s affair en route to an 83-65 victory and berth in the District finals. By the 5:30 mark of the second quarter, the Black Knights’ lead had ballooned to 26-5 before first-team All-Jefferson District guard Tyler Seal scored in transition to bring the score to 26-7 with 5:17 remaining in the second quarter.
“That is probably the worst we have come out this year. I could see it when we came in from warm ups, we weren’t there,” Hornets head coach Keyode Rogers said. “Against Charlottesville, you have to bring it and they killed us on the boards… and with their runs [driving and in transition]. You have to make shots and play a complete 32 minutes.”
Daquan Jones and sophomore guard Demarcus Scott led the Black Knights during their run with a combined 23 points and five rebounds, while Charlottesville collectively forced five turnovers.
Orange traded baskets after Seal broke the 21-0 run in the second quarter, and went into halftime trailing 41-20.
Jones attributed his team’s success to being able to play physically and at a good tempo.
“It’s all about playing at our pace, not playing our style. Orange is very fast team, but we’re a fast team too,” Charlottesville junior forward Daquan Jones said. “For us, it was about getting the ball and slowing the game down so we can run our plays. From there we just played our game. When you go against a really fast team like Orange, it’s about containing them and imposing our tempo.”
Black Knights coach Mitch Minor was particularly pleased with his team’s willingness to impose its physicality by dribble-driving and crashing the boards. His team collected 17 of its 39 rebounds on the offensive end and scored a majority of its points on layups and second-chance points.
“I thought Damarcus [Scott, who scored 24 points on the night] did a great job of dribble driving tonight. He converted a lot of those dribble drives into points… and when we didn’t score the first time, getting offensive rebounds was huge,” Minor said. “[Daquan] was really getting after it out there on the boards tonight.”
In the second half, Orange applied its renowned full-court press — “32 minutes of hell” according to Rogers and his team — successfully and clawed back into the game. The Hornets forced eleven turnovers in the first 12 minutes of the second half, closing Charlottesville’s lead to within 13 points with 3:56 remaining in the game.
The Black Knights eventually settled down despite the press, and traded baskets with Orange for the remainder of the game.
Scott led Charlottesville with 24 points while Jones notched a double-double with 22 points and 17 rebounds. Seal led the Hornets with 14 points.
“We’re excited to play for the [JD] tournament championship. We’re ready to go to Regionals, States… we’re ready to play,” Scott said. “We need to focus on fouling less and we can always play better, but we’re just excited. We want to play at our best right now.”
Charlottesville faces Monticello tonight for the Jefferson District championship tonight at Monticello High School.
