Ryan Ingram scored 15 points, Carrington Murphy added 11 and Western Albemarle used a 16-3 run early in the fourth quarter to blow past visiting Charlottesville 63-53 Friday night in Crozet.
The Warriors led 43-33 with 20 seconds to go in the third quarter before Charlottesville’s Jaylen Hudson hit back-to-back three-pointers sandwiched around the quarter break. Hudson was fouled on the second triple and had a chance to cut the lead to one possession, but missed the free throw and the Black Knights went without a field goal for the next 6:19, essentially spelling doom for CHS.
Meanwhile, Western pulled away, beginning with a basket from Murphy and a free throw by Michael Vale. After Tyreek Ragland missed a pair of free throws for CHS, Ingram hit two of his own and followed that up with a three at the 5:50 mark for a 51-39 lead. Nick Yancey, who had nine points for the Warriors, exchanged pairs of free throws with Gage before hitting two more to make it a 14-point game, then, after a Charlottesville miss, Austin Cress threw down a thunderous two-handed dunk on the fast break that send the Western faithful into a frenzy.
Charlottesville never recovered and didn’t hit another field goal until Hudson’s three with 1:30 remaining. But by that point, the Warriors led by 16 and the game was well in hand.
“We talked about staying tough and being mentally tough, and we made some shots,” WAHS head coach Darren Maynard said. “I thought we handled their press and their halfcourt trap almost perfectly. Our guards did a great job.”
The Black Knights opened the game on an 8-2 spurt spearheaded by consecutive threes by Gage and Murray Hill. But they scored just two points the rest of the first quarter while Western heated up. Western led 16-10 after one and 31-23 at the break.
Gage, one of six seniors on the Charlottesville roster, led the Knights with a game-high 20 points and a dazzling array of no-look passes to teammates. Hudson chipped in 17, but no other CHS player had more than six.
“Caleb’s been with us four years, he knows what I expect,” CHS head coach Mitch Minor said. “He’s a captain. He’s a leader of the team. But I think if we had executed on defense much better, we would’ve given them more of a fight.”
CHS faced a significant disadvantage in the post and took to flinging up three-pointers, going 10-for-31 from beyond the arc. Western was 5-for-13 from three, doing most of its damage attacking the rim.
“We wanted to go inside some, and I don’t think we did quite as much as I hoped to do,” Maynard said. “[Charlottesville] negates a lot of that with their quickness and their athletic ability. They make it hard to get it in there sometimes.”
