On a team comprised of eight seniors that had done just about everything that there is to do in a Western Albemarle basketball uniform, a junior made several clutch plays to help the Warriors conquer a new milestone on Friday night.
Reserve point guard Alex Keeton went 4-4 from the foul line in the final 32 seconds and drew an enormous charge on defense to help lift Western to a 63-56 win over E.C. Glass in the Region 4D Championship game.
The regional title was Western Albemarle’s third since 2018, but first in the 4A classification, which Western moved up to in the beginning of the 2021-22 academic year.
Keeton tallied 12 points for the Warriors, including a perfect 10-10 from the free throw line.
After senior Lucas Farmer forced a timely jump ball on defense, the Hilltoppers fouled Keeton on the other end of the floor with 32.4 seconds left on the clock.
As he had done all night, Keeton calmly sank both foul shots, then drew a critical charge on the other end to give his team the ball back and to send the Hilltoppers’ star player, Dre Harris to the bench with five fouls.
The junior closed the game with two more free throws to slam the door on Glass, and help seal the win for his team.
“[Keeton] has been getting better and better — he hasn’t played this well before, but it was a great time for it,” Western Albemarle coach Darren Maynard said. “He was huge down the stretch. He made play after play after play, and took that huge charge at the end.”
While Keeton’s contributions were a pleasant surprise, a number of the usual suspects made their mark in Friday’s win as well. Isaac Sumpter knocked down five triples to lead the Warriors with 16 points on the night. The starting front court of Josh Sime and Farmer dominated the paint, finishing with 14 and 12 points respectively.
Western Albemarle trailed the entire first half and into the third quarter, before the home team began to take control of the physical battle. Farmer bookended a 7-0 run early in the third frame to give the Warriors their first lead of the contest. After falling behind briefly on the following E.C. Glass possession, Keeton answered with a drive for two, and Western never trailed for the remainder of the game.
The Warriors outscored Glass 23-12 between the late-third and early-fourth quarters to finally build a two-possession lead with 4:06 left on the clock.
The Hilltoppers pulled to within one after back-to-back triples by Eli Wood, but several timely defensive plays and some clutch free throws allowed Western to prevail in the seesaw battle.
“We would pull a little bit ahead and it seemed like [Glass] had a counterpunch too, so it was a little back-and-forth there,” Maynard said. “Once we got a little bit of a cushion, I thought that we had a good shot to do it, because I knew we’re really tough down the stretch and we sort of did what we usually do.”
Western overcame a hot-shooting E.C. Glass team, as five different Hilltoppers hit at least one three-pointer on the night. Glass built two big leads in each of the first quarters.
The visitors raced out to a 16-5 start, forcing five Warriors turnovers in the first five minutes of play. Following Western’s second-called timeout of the quarter, the Warriors responded with an 11-0 run to tie the game at 16 apiece.
Glass then hit WAHS with a 13-4 run to build a nine-point lead midway through the second quarter. Farmer stopped the bleeding by going 1-2 from the free throw line and scored on a pair of put-backs late in the half, to pull Western to within three at intermission.
Despite trimming both first half deficits, the Warriors closed the two quarters with costly turnovers that led to E.C. Glass points. Though he was proud of the way his team clawed back into the game each time, Maynard challenged his team to finish the job in the final 16 minutes.
“I think it was just toughness,” Sumpter said. “Coach [Maynard] said at halftime that we didn’t play that well in the first half, so we needed to come out tougher in the second half, and we did.”
Harris led all scorers with 17 points, while Eli Wood chipped in 12 points for E.C. Glass.
The 4D Region Championship adds another chapter to the storied career of the eight-man Western Albemarle senior class. Many of the class of 2022 spent their freshman years on an undefeated JV team, before moving up to help the varsity program reach the state final four in 2020. Last winter, the Warriors were primed and ready to make another postseason run, before Covid-19 shut down the season prior to the region tournament.
Now, the veteran group is back in states and they are eager to continue carving out their legacy in Crozet.
“Our seniors, we’ve been together forever,” senior Luca Tesoriere said. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs. We were in this situation our sophomore year going all the way to the final four- then the next year, we thought we had a really good team, but we got shut down. This year, we’ve just tried to stay positive, come back, and hopefully go further and go all the way.”
