Once you get to the state tournament, it’s hard to overcome even one weak link in the chain.
That’s why Blue Ridge’s Shannon Simango had to be ready when Baron big man Houston Emory suffered an injury recently.
“I’ve been learning from Houston and Maliq (Brown) the whole time I’ve been here and they’ve been telling me ‘your time is going to come’,” Simango said. “And I was like, yeah, right maybe next year but then my time came. I had to step up”
Simango did a lot of the little things on defense and hauled in eight rebounds, in turn allowing frontcourt mate Maliq Brown to flourish as usual and lead the Barons to a 53-50 victory in the VISAA D2 state semifinals. Brown put together another huge performance as the Syracuse-bound senior scored 19 points and grabbed 17 boards. But the mentorship and work he put in months and months ago with Blue Ridge’s younger players may have been Brown’s most important contribution to Friday’s win. It was certainly a big reason Simango was ready to play his role defensively that allowed Blue Ridge to not miss much of a beat on that end of the court with Emory’s contributions limited.
“(Maliq) is an amazing player and an amazing Baron brother — he’s a mentor because he’s been in my position before,” Simango said. “Anything I do, I’ve got to listen to him because he knows what he’s talking about. That’s the good thing about Maliq, the mentor that he is, the Baron brother that he is and the amazing player that y’all can see.”
It was clear from the start the Barons were in for a low scoring affair that was going to test their patience. At the end of the first quarter, Blue Ridge was up just 9-7 and Steward’s own active approach on defense and a series of tough misses made it clear the Barons were going to have to gut it out.
While the Barons are the defending champions and have won three titles in a row dating back to 2019, Brown is one of the few players in the mix constantly that has been through the wars on the floor that got the Barons to that point. Instead, fresher faces like Logan Rhoades, Robby Matos and players like Devin Walker taking on expanded roles got their first taste of the big stage Friday. That forced the Barons to grind it out down the stretch and try to lean on each other.
“We relied on each other, we realize we’re stronger as a unit and realized it’s not an individual game,” Simango said. “We’ve got a target on our back (as the No. 1 seed), we’ve got to rely on each other and trust each other as a unit.”
By halftime, the Barons’ usual suffocating defense had stayed locked in and the offense made progress, building a 25-15 lead, and that mostly held until the fourth. In fact, heading to the final frame, Blue Ridge’s packline had held Steward to seven, six and six points by quarter. Still Blue Ridge led 46-38 with two minutes to play. But in those final two minutes, Steward got on something of a roll, with Nick Booker and Cam Gregory connecting on threes that cut into the Blue Ridge lead. The Barons needed a critical free throw from Cam Brewer with just seconds to play to push the lead to 53-48 and lock in the win for Blue Ridge.
Devin Walker finished with eight points and four assists and the Barons got five points each from Brewer and Simango. But the Barons would definitely like to improve on a 39 percent from the field outing as a team when they square off with Highland in the state title game.
Thanks to players like Simango being ready when called upon, Blue Ridge will get that chance at 2 p.m. Saturday at Virginia State.
