By Drew Goodman / Scrimmageplaycva.com
After splitting the Jefferson District title with Albemarle last season, Louisa County’s boys basketball team made it abundantly clear Tuesday night that the Lions had no intention of sharing the crown this winter.
In the de facto Jefferson District regular season championship clash, LCHS smothered the Patriots and cruised to a 74-58 triumph on the road.
With the win, Louisa (19-3) wrapped up its first ever outright regular season district title.
“It’s big for the program, big for these kids. It just so happened that this game, this season, this an effort that we’ve been working on the last four years, and for it to happen on the road at Albemarle, a place that we don’t win a whole lot, makes it even sweeter,” Louisa head coach Robert Shelton said.
The Lions will be the top-seed in the upcoming JD tournament while Albemarle will be the No. 2 seed.
Louisa led wire-to-wire and enjoyed a double-digit advantage from late in the second quarter onward.
A stellar effort from Louisa’s starting backcourt, consisting of Jarett Hunter, Chris Shelton, and Xavien Hunter enabled the Lions to control the tempo and speed the Patriots up. The dynamic guards combined for 54 of Louisa’s 74 points.
It was a balanced affair, as Xavien Hunter and Shelton each scored 20 points, while Jarett Hunter chipped in 14.
The bulk of those points came inside the paint, as Albemarle had no answer for the trio’s quickness off of the dribble.
Already leading by 10 points at halftime, the three guards took turns scoring for an 11-0 run that completely took Albemarle out of the game. Despite playing for nearly the entire contest, Shelton and the two Hunters never tired and seldom missed a beat.
“We’ve been doing that since middle school. We’ve been playing together forever, so when big games come like this, and the lights turn on, it’s go-time,” Chris Shelton said.
The Louisa offense was even more deadly in the second half, as the Lions got hot from beyond the arc. After doing most of its damage down low in the first two quarters, Louisa buried six three-pointers in the final 16 minutes of play.
As sharp as the Lions were offensively, the visitors were even more impressive on the defensive end of the floor. Louisa turned the Patriots over five times in the game’s first several minutes, and kept Albemarle off the scoreboard until the 4:28 mark of the first quarter.
The suffocating Louisa defense allowed few open looks from the both the perimeter and inside the lane, while limiting Albemarle to just five field goals in the entire first half.
With the fouls resetting after intermission, the Lions were all over Albemarle to start the second half. In nearly identical circumstances to the game’s opening minutes, Albemarle did not score until the 4:24 mark of the third quarter.
Louisa used a hybrid defense that extended past the half court line to stymie the Patriots for much of the contest. The Lions experimented with the zone in the first meeting with AHS at home, before going to a more traditional set in second half of that game.
Despite some early foul trouble, Coach Shelton liked what he saw from his defense in round number two, and kept the pressure on for the entirety of the contest.
“We tried to mix things up and give those guys different looks,” Robert Shelton said. “We saw we were having success in it, so we stayed in it a little longer. The kids played it well, we didn’t get a lot of steals, but I think we controlled the tempo with it.”
Keeping Albemarle’s Myles Ward in check was a major factor in Louisa’s dominating performance on defense and paved the way for a much more decisive win against the Patriots this time around. After allowing 15 points in the first meeting, the Lions focused on containing Ward, holding the talented guard to just one bucket.
After falling behind 8-0, and later 14-4, the Patriots made a push between the late-first and early-second quarters.
Chris Cox and Derrick Jones combined for seven straight Albemarle points to trim the deficit to just three points, before Louisa responded with a back-breaking 7-0 run.
Fresh off of a blowout loss at Western Albemarle on Friday night, AHS found itself on the wrong end of a 20-plus point deficit in the fourth quarter for the second consecutive contest.
The Lions led by as many as 23 before Albemarle made it a more respectable final score in the game’s closing minutes.
The play of their reserves was one bright spot for the Patriots in an otherwise disappointing night. Justin Murkey came off the bench to lead AHS with 15 points on the night. Junior Jake LaRosa provided a brief offensive spark in the third quarter and chipped in 10 points.
The game was well in hand in the fourth quarter, but that did not stop backup guard Cameron Cox from adding eight points late for the home team.
“I was really proud of Justin and and Jake LaRosa. They came in and gave us a great lift,” Albemarle head coach Greg Maynard said. “Our starting one, two, and three men, got crushed by their starting one, two, and three men. That’s the difference in the game, we couldn’t stop their guards.”
Jones added 11 points for the Patriots.
Both teams will conclude their respective regular seasons on Wednesday night. Albemarle will travel to Orange, while Louisa will host Charlottesville.
Louisa County boys basketball’s Chris Shelton talks about the Lions’ district title clinching win over Albemarle in First Off the Floor presented by @PT_acac pic.twitter.com/RmRkb2apVO
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