With incredible depth and a variety of styles blending together, it seems that any given night, any one Blue Ridge’s boys basketball players could lead the Barons in scoring.
Thursday night in the home opener, it was Sasha Glushkov’s night as the 6-foot-11 big man posted 14 points on an efficient 6-for-7 scoring to lead the Barons to a 79-54 victory over Veritas Collegiate.
It helped that for three quarters with the main rotation players in, Blue Ridge’s defense was its usual suffocating self, holding Veritas to single digits in the opening three quarters before a 29-point surge in the fourth made the final score look closer than it was. It was a 61-25 blowout at the end of the third quarter.
“When we start playing good on defense it helps us on offense so we’ll concentrate all the time on defense,” Glushkov said.
The Barons’ guards were particularly aggressive defensively with Derrick Jones’ four steals leading Blue Ridge’s 14 total as a team. Michael Gray and William Lee each had three on the night.
“I thought for our first two games we’ve seen some good things,” said Blue Ridge coach Cade Lemcke. “Guys are looking for each other, they’re just as excited when their teammate scores as when they make a play themselves, which is a great sign for a coach early in the season.”
Like most teams this early in the year, Blue Ridge (2-0) can easily point to an aspect of the game they need to work on — turnovers. The Barons committed 28 turnovers as a team, and while the defense prevented Veritas from capitalizing, that could come back to bite the Barons if they don’t shore it up.
“We’ve got a long way to go — they need to value the basketball, we had way too many turnovers,” Lemcke said.
William Lee finished with 12 points while Jones notched 11. Gray had five assists in the win. Kobe Jerome led the guards’ effort in rebounding with five boards while Jones had four. Jacob Rice led the Barons with six rebounds on the night. Maliq Brown had nine points while going 4-for-4 from the field including a flush in the first half.
Blue Ridge will try and move to 3-0 on the season against Amelia Academy Saturday at the Assist Showcase at Meadowbrook High in Richmond.
