Western Albemarle didn’t really have to do much soul searching to get excited for Wednesday’s Daily Progress/NBC29 Holiday Classic final.
“Everyone knows they’ve beaten us twice, they’ve kind of had our number and the games weren’t even really that close,” said Western’s Christian Pierce. “And with Western never having won the tournament, we had plenty of motivation for the game.”
That motivation translated into an inspired, workman-like effort against the Patriots as Western picked up a 55-40 victory and head coach Darren Maynard’s first Holiday Classic title in 13 chances.
Western cleaned up the boards and loose balls all night, with Pierce hauling in 13 rebounds to pace the Warriors while Dante Crawford hauled in 12 boards of his own. Both posted double doubles with Pierce scoring a team-high 16 points and Crawford knocking home 12 points.
“Western obviously wanted the ball more than we did on rebounds, on loose balls,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “We got in foul trouble and we lost out aggressiveness. We gave up way too many lay-ups in the second half and they kept taking it at us.”
Pierce and Crawford alternately dominated the paint, with Andrew Mann really making the only impact for Albemarle underneath with 13 points and 10 rebounds. The Warriors’ senior tandem was just too quick to the basket and too tough for Albemarle after the Patriots controlled the first two meetings.
“One of them would be out with foul trouble and the other one would go dominate the glass, then the other would go out with foul trouble and the opposite one would dominate,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “I thought they just gave a heroic effort.”
The game was tight until the third quarter when Albemarle pulled within a bucket on a steal and lay-in by Mayn Francisco. But Western heated up shortly thereafter and went on a 10-0 run sparked by back-to-back Ben Jackson scores. By the end of the run, Western had control and a 43-31 lead.
Travis Hester steadied Western in the closing minutes after Pierce fouled out. The sophomore finished with 15 points including a 9-for-10 night at the charity stripe as he continued his emergence as one of the Warriors’ top scoring threats. Ben Jackson also had a second-straight strong night off the bench with solid interior defense and eight points.
Albemarle got solid guard play from Daiquan West who finished with four assists, but the Patriots couldn’t seem to kick things into high gear when they needed to against a Western team that had all three of its key players clicking at once.
The Warriors hit the road Tuesday to take on Orange County in a key Jefferson District battle while Albemarle hits the road the same day to take on Stafford, the top team in the Commonwealth and currently ranked No. 10 in the state by virginiapreps.com in Group AAA.
