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Fluvanna holds off Western

When Fluvanna and Western Albemarle’s girls basketball teams lock up, half the battle is just surviving.

Strike that. It’s all about survival.

“You’ve got two bulls in the ring going at each other, we’re knocking heads — I knew it was going to be like that,” said Fluvanna coach Chad White. “Every time we play them it’s like that.”

Both teams know how to play defense and play it well night in and night out, so whoever executes their offense and withstands just one run from the opposition in a low scoring affair probably gets the win.

Fluvanna managed that task, building offense from a number of steals on the defensive end en route to a 34-30 victory over the Warriors that kept the Flucos unbeaten in the Jefferson District Friday night.

Mia Loyd led the defensive charge with six steals, falling just a handful of thefts short of a triple double with 14 points and 12 rebounds. In the closing minutes she came up with two critical steals.

“In those moments where you’re not playing that well offensively, big-time players step up and find other ways to help the team,” White said. “She came up with two big ones that pretty much sealed it.”

Loyd had a pair of three-pointers and Briana Burruss also buried a long ball for the Flucos (9-1, 4-0 Jefferson), building on her breakout performance earlier in the week against Monticello.

Her older sister, senior K-anna Loyd, also got in on the steals, coming up with three including one that eventually led to her hitting a free throw that gave Fluvanna a 31-28 advantage. It was a critical turnover for the Warriors, who had put together a short scoring burst capped by a Raven Ward jumper to knot the score at 28-28 after trailing by five at the end of the third quarter.

K-anna Loyd finished with three steals and five boards to go with a seven points.

The Flucos/Warriors battle is currently a unique matchup in the Jefferson former Western coach Jason Barnett serves as a Fluvanna assistant under White. Barnett has an intimate knowledge of Western’s system as his former assistant Kris Wright now runs the team. But with Barnett’s influence on the Fluvanna side, Wright also knows how to slow down the Flucos, which results in a sort of stalemate.

And that’s why it comes down, almost completely, to execution. And with ramped up defensive pressure in the fourth quarter, Fluvanna managed to force the Flucos into some mistakes and turned it into offense at the free throw line.

“We couldn’t execute on offense because their defensive pressure went up and we didn’t handle it very well,” Wright said. “If you can’t make shots under pressure or run your offense under pressure it’s going to be tough to score.”

Western, as usual, got a solid effort underneath from Ellen Shaffrey who had eight boards and 12 points. Raven Ward, who had a terrific first half on the boards, finished with 11 rebounds. Virginia Carew managed five steals to lead the Warriors (6-4, 2-2) in the category, helping offset some of the Flucos’ thefts.

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