MADISON — You know you’re having a good night when your alley-oop passes are hitting nothing and putting points on the board. Yes, it was one of those nights. In the third quarter of its matchup with visiting Monticello, Madison County gave the fans more than a show in their 71-36 handling of the Mustangs.
“That was a pretty exciting stretch of basketball,” said Mountaineers coach Ben Breeden. “It was good to see our kids get excited too. We talk a lot about trying to create our own energy, about how that’s something that can carry us further this year.”
Well there wasn’t anyone sitting in the Madison stands after what turned out to be a two-minute circus act.
Up by 10 points heading into the second half, the Mountaineers showcased their athleticism in a 16-0 run that opened up the third quarter. Shortly after David Falk’s pass to Jerel Carter fell into the basket for a 3-pointer, Matt Garr brought the crowd to life on a hard dunk that seemingly came out of nowhere. On Monticello’s ensuing possession, Madison forced a turnover and Garr went to the basket again, but this time he threw the ball off the glass where it was then hammered home on a thunderous dunk from a trailing Falk.
“We came out at the half and wanted to jump out on (Monticello) early,” Garr said. “We also wanted to make sure that we could keep them from scoring 40 points on us.”
Garr, described by Breeden as the team’s best defender, did a little bit of everything on Saturday night. The senior big man wasn’t just a presence in the post, he also buried a pair of three pointers to finish with 12 points on the night.
Falk led the Mountaineers with 18 points while Carter and Logan Terrell finished with 13 and 12 respectively.
For Monticello, Patrick Boling scored 10 points while Kevin Archer contributed six. While the Mustangs are young and relatively inexperienced, their coach, Kareem Martin insists that that is no longer a reasonable excuse for his team any more.
“I don’t know that we can keep saying to ourselves that we’re young,” Martin said. “We’re 10 games into the season now. It’s about heart and desire. It’s about playing hard. But also, we can’t give up 30 turnovers to a team like (Madison) and then let them dunk all over us, because what that does is just break your spirit.”
Martin is contemplating on making some changes in the upcoming week.
“We knew this was going to be a tough season coming, but we’ve got to decide if we want to move forward by calling up some of our junior varsity players,” Martin said. “That’s a decision that I’ll make on Monday and we’ll have to move on from there.”
Monticello (0-9) will travel to Orange County on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Madison County (12-0) hosts Manassas Park at 7:30 p.m.
