It was pretty understandable that Western Albemarle’s boys basketball team was going to have to gut it out a little against Monticello.
“We certainly had a hangover,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “Our energy level wasn’t great because we really extended ourselves last night and their energy level was really good so we struggled a little bit in the first half.”
Coming off a thrilling win over Louisa County Thursday, the Warriors shook off a slow start against the Mustangs and came up with a 56-39 win.
It helped that the Warriors’ Tommy Mangrum put together his second-straight 28-point performance, scoring 19 of those 28 after the break as Western transformed a slight 21-19 advantage into a 17-point lead by the end of the third quarter.
“Coming out of the half, we shifted our focus back to the game because we know Monticello is good enough that if we didn’t focus they could beat us easily,” Mangrum said. “So we just locked it in and played how we did at Louisa.”
Mangrum had a dunk during that explosive third quarter run, but the Warriors really seemed to start getting on track in the second quarter when they switched to a full court press. With their shots not falling from beyond the arc (the Warriors hit just two threes after hitting 10 against Louisa), Western needed to create some easy buckets and the press helped them do just that.
“(Mangrum) started getting aggressive and taking it to the basket and that’s what we really needed to do, we couldn’t buy a 3-pointer so we had to abandon that strategy,” Maynard said. “I thought we got a lot out of our full court press.”
Once the Warriors were in a rhythm, it was clear that it wore on a Monticello squad playing without standout scorer Ben Drake. The Mustangs refused to go away easily, but couldn’t cut into the Warriors’ lead. Justin McCartney led the Mustangs with 13 points while Dylan Scheel had eight points.
Winning big over the Lions on Thursday and then shaking off that early hangover to beat the Mustangs vaults the Warriors back into the mix at the top of the Jefferson District. It’s a huge turnaround from last Friday when the Warriors slipped against Orange County.
“Last night was our biggest win of the season, Louisa is a great team,” Mangrum said. “We were coming into previous games a little bit slow and that game showed us that if we get to a good start, we can beat any team out here.”
Daniel Brown and Henry Sullivan each scored six points for the Warriors while Garrett Livermon chipped in four. Nine of Western’s 10 players that suited up scored at least two points.
The Mustangs will now look to bounce back against Orange County Tuesday at home while the Warriors host Louisa in a critical rematch in Crozet Tuesday night.
