RICHMOND − A team that surprised many by advancing past the Region B tournament, the Buckingham County girl’s basketball team’s impressive post season run finally came to end on Saturday afternoon as a tall and talented Lancaster team jumped out early and never looked back in its 85-45 Group A quarterfinal win over the Knights.
“With every team that’s what we say ‘Jump on them early’” said Devils coach Joanne Webb-Fary. “This is probably the fastest group of players that we’ve had in the last four years and that worked to our advantage today.”
Lancaster got out a quick start, opening up a 9-2 run in the game’s first minutes before getting out in front by 17 points. The Knights would piece together a small 5-0 run of their own to get within 12 points towards the end of the first frame, but weren’t able keep up of the Devils.
“We could score,” said Buckingham coach Ethan Abruzzo. “We just couldn’t stop them on defense.”
Lancaster went up by 25 points by the end of the first half and was able to keep cruising in the third and fourth quarters.
Georgetown-bound Andrea White had a big game for the Devils leading all scorers with 36 points while also putting together 15 rebounds and 4 steals and assists.
“I had heard a lot about her,” Abruzzo said. “Pretty much everything I heard is true.”
Senior Ashley Ransom complimented White with her 14 points, eight rebounds and four steals.
Shamika Woodson and Shanice Miles scored 14 and 13 respective points in the last game of their high school careers. Sophomore Elynn Lee scored 11 points and hit all three of her 3-point attempts.
For Abruzzo, his team entered the season with limited expectations from outsiders, but he and his squad believed they were capable of qualifying for the state tournament and so the journey to the Siegel Center was a solid accomplishment.
“It’s been fantastic,” Abruzzo said. “Not a lot of people thought that we could do this, but we certainly did.”
Miles echoed her coach’s sentiments.
“We thought we could do this and we were so excited that we made it her,” Miles said.
