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Fast Start: Blue Ridge explodes out of the gates, beats Miller

Photo by Brian Mellott

It was, essentially, an ideal start for Blue Ridge Friday night at home in this year’s first installment of the Blue Ridge-Miller rivalry clash. 

 

The Barons, who recently debuted as the No. 1-ranked squad in VISAA’s Division I, were locked in defensively. They were diving after loose balls. They had a solid gameplan for how to beat Miller’s intense press and the Barons led 17-4 at the end of the first quarter. 

 

That ideal start turned into an ideal result with a 70-43 win over the No. 3-ranked Mavericks who couldn’t seem to find a rhythm against the Barons’ packline defense. 

 

“That’s us, that’s one of our key principles — we have to be disciplined and we have to play really good defense, knowing our rotations and all that is really important to us,” said Blue Ridge’s Robby Matos said.

 

It showed throughout with a series of big blocks and forcing the Mavericks into tough shots seemingly every time Miller came down the floor.  

 

It helped, as usual, that the Barons also had Maliq Brown, who did a little bit of everything with 17 points, 15 rebounds, five assists, three steals and a pair of blocks. Those assists were a particularly interesting part of the stat line. Brown is well-established as an excellent passing big man, but most of those assists came from him dusting off his old quarterback skillset. The Syracuse commitment came to Blue Ridge as an intriguing tall quarterback prospect before transitioning to focus on basketball. You could tell in the second half as Brown unleashed several deadly-accurate bombs to a streaking Devin Walker or Robby Matos, both of whom have spent some serious time at receiver. 

 

“We put that in this week because we had a guard and we knew that they would put a big man on the inbound or they’d be faceguarding and we have fast guards so you just run,” Walker said. “A lot of guys on our team play football so we were just running and going to get it.”

 

Brown’s 17 points were part of an impressive balanced offensive performance with Walker scoring 17 of his own, Logan Rhoades scoring 14 and Matos notching 12. Rhodes gave the Barons an early lift with a couple of early 3-pointers. Rhoades finished 4-for-8 from beyond the arc on the night. 

 

Walker also had five assists and three boards while Matos had three steals and two assists. It was clear against a Miller squad that has a talented backcourt just how much Matos and Walker have grown this year and gotten more comfortable in taking on their roles as the team’s lead guards. 

 

“We’re just going hard in practice every day, competing with each other and getting everybody better,” Walker said. “Especially us guards, we’ve been up and down throughout the season so far and we’re just picking it up in practice.”

 

For Matos, that improvement comes down to confidence. 

 

“Before the season we knew that was going to be a question but I had confidence in Devin, Devin has confidence in me, we have confidence in Cam (Brewer) and Logan (Rhoades), we all have confidence in each other,” Matos said. “And the coaches have confidence in us as well and when a coach has confidence in you it shows through your play.”

 

Miller got 11 points from Austin Ball, with eight of those coming in the third quarter, but even with improved play out of the locker room, the Mavericks couldn’t get back into it.

 

These two will face off again in 10 days on January 25th, but the Barons face a short turnaround with a game Saturday morning against Bishop Sullivan at Charlottesville High in the LockerRoomInc Classic at 11:15 a.m. Miller will try and bounce back Tuesday at home against Hargrave. 

 

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