If it wasn’t obvious before, it’s clear now that Western Albemarle’s trio of seniors in the post are a handful. When they all play at the same time, as they did against Park View’s 2-3 zone Wednesday night, they’re a matchup nightmare — even for a team with Park View’s height and size.
“(Park View is) strong but we’re quicker—we’ve got a lot of speed on our team,” said Western Albemarle’s Raven Ward.
Ward, Carolyn Schneller and Ellen Shaffrey combined for a dominant effort underneath the basket in a runaway 61-40 victory over the Patriots. Shaffrey, the Jefferson District player of the year, poured in 19 points and hauled down 16 rebounds while Schneller also posted a sizeable double double with 13 points and 12 boards. Ward tallied eight points, five rebounds and a pair of blocks.
With the trio of post players in there, Shaffrey moves to the small forward slot, which opens things up for Western in a big way.
“When you have three seniors in there that have played 70-some ,” said Western coach Kris Wright. “It creates some options for us, and after that, the next sub is a guard. We can take it from being big to suddenly being kind of small and quick.”
It also, according to Ward, gets Western thinking high-low, giving the players in the post more frequent, quality looks.
“Sometimes we don’t really get those looks,” Ward said. “(But when we’re all in there) we know to look down low.”
Ellen’s younger sister, sophomore Bridget Shaffrey, even got in on the act in the post with six rebounds off the bench for Western.
Western worked the ball through the offense well early, jumping out to a 16-8 lead in the first quarter and never looked back. Defensively, the post-heavy lineup helped hold Park View’s offense in check. Kylie Himmelberger, Mikala Dillard and Yorkie Torto all got into double figures with 11, 12 and 11 points respectively, but the rest of the Park View roster had just four points. Dillard, a 6-foot-3 center, never seemed to get in a groove and Torto got into double figures largely with foul shots with the game well in hand for Western.
Park View could be a regional force going forward — there are no seniors on the Patriots’ roster and Dillard is just a sophomore.
The Western victory sets up a third matchup with Jefferson District rival Charlottesville for the right to go to the Group AA tournament and the Region II final. The previous games have been close, with Western winning by six
