Headlines

Western boys jump on Broadway, cruise to region quarterfinal win

Western Albemarle’s boys basketball team wanted to remind Broadway what they’d been missing. It had been a year after all.

 

“We played them here last year in the first round of the conference and sort of jumped all over them,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “We wanted to remind them of that and put that back in their mind.”

 

Garrett Payne and Teo Rampini helped remind them and Charlie Weyher threw in his own flourish as Western buried the Gobblers in the first quarter and rolled to a 65-40 win in the Class 3, Region C quarterfinals Monday night.

 

The win puts the Warriors just a win away from the state tournament. They’ll host Rustburg, who held off Monticello Monday, in the region semifinals Wednesday night.

 

Rampini led the Warriors’ assault with 23 points and five rebounds on the night, kickstarted by a pair of first quarter 3-pointers and 10 points in that frame. He had 16 of those 23 in the first half.

 

“We talked to him about how important he is to the postseason for us,” Maynard said. “He’d been in a little slump so he came back with a really good effort tonight.”

 

Payne brought a defensive edge and an explosive dunk to that first quarter too as Western seemed locked in from the opening tip.

 

“I thought Garrett’s energy level was really good, he had a bunch of blocked shots and deflections and things,” Maynard said. “The dunk early got us going.”

 

Then with that opening frame winding down, Weyher buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer to push the lead to 19-5. Broadway never seemed to recover and the Warriors kept the pedal down, extending the lead to 24 points at 37-13  by halftime.

 

Chris McGahren finished with 10 points while Weyher and Payne each had seven to help compliment Rampini’s assault.

 

Western will take on Rustburg Wednesday night in Crozet.

Comments

comments