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Hornsby, Hagen spark Albemarle to win over Orange

Photo by Bart Isley

Albemarle’s boys basketball team has been waiting for Will Hornsby and Wilson Hagen to kick things into gear. 

 

With star senior Josh Morse stuck on the bench after suffering an ankle sprain in the first half, Hornsby and Hagen couldn’t have picked a better time to light it up in an 84-49 win over Orange County. 

 

“Will and Wilson are both excellent shooters and I’ve been waiting for that to come on a game night, they shoot like that in practice all the time,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “It was good to see that happen on a game night especially losing Josh in the first quarter and them stepping up.”

 

Hornsby buried three first half 3-pointers en route to finishing with 18 points while Hagen scored 11 first half points on his way to 17 points for the night. Hagen also pulled down 11 rebounds, helping offset Morse being tethered to the bench with the injury. It helped too that Jackson Rose scored nine points and dished out nine points in a masterful performance at point guard. 

 

“That’s the best game he’s played too,” Maynard said. “I’m really pleased that that supporting cast, when we’ve been depending on Josh a lot here early on, is coming up and playing like I know they can.”

 

The Patriots took advantage of Orange’s zone approach early and frustrated the Hornets to the point that coach Adam Utz made a quick five-in, five-out change in the opening minutes to try and get his squad’s attention. 

 

“They were playing us in a 2-3 zone so we spaced them out and the middle man just kicked it out to our shooters and we had shots go in,” Hornsby said.

 

Hornsby knocked down a lot of those shots himself. 

 

“We’ve told him this year, he’s got to hunt his shots and he’s done a better job of that,” Maynard said.

 

While Hornsby and Hagen got the Patriots going, the Albemarle bench played a big role in keeping Orange at arm’s length. La’mari Parler buried a 3-pointer from the corner at the end of the first half, Jason Breen scored four points in the second quarter en route to an eight-point outing and Christian Humes also had eight points. 

 

“And Carter Wesson (played well) — we’ve got a deep bench,” Maynard said. “It was a really good offensive effort from us and we played solid defense.”

 

The Patriots had the difficult task of trying to hold Orange’s Sihle Mthethwa in check for the second time in four days without Morse protecting the paint, and a variety of Patriots including Chris Woods were up to the task for the most part. Mthethwa scored 21 points but he had to work for seemingly every single one of them, including against the Patriots’ deep bench. 

 

“(The Patriots’ reserves) did a good job on defense too, they picked it up,” Hornsby said. “(It was) a good team effort).”

 

Alex Cappola knocked down a trio of 3-pointers for nine points for the Hornets while Doug Newsome and Destin Bray each chipped in eight points for the Hornets while Will Lewis had seven. 

 

The Hornets will look to bounce back against Western Albemarle Wednesday night while Albemarle will look to keep things going against Fluvanna County at home the same night.

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