Volume 5, Issue 8

T H E C E N T R A L V I R G I N I A S P O R T S A U T H O R I T Y

scrımmageplayVOL 5 . ISSUE 8 :: DECEMBER 13, 2013

Thought ProcessHow Chase Stokes’ hoops IQ give WAHS an edge PAGE 7

REBUILDING ALL AROUND THE AREA

BARBOUR AND AHS BACK AT IT

05 13

W H Y D A S?Because the Bushnell Solar Wrap Mini that charges your devices with the power of the sun is just one of

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x’s and o’sSTAFFBart Isley, Creative DirectorBob Isley, Infrastructure DirectorRyan Yemen, Creative Editor

ON THE COVERWAHS senior Chase Stokes

MISSION STATEMENTLocal sports are the lifeblood of every community in America, and we’re here to reach beyond the basics and give compelling accounts about Central Virginia athletes to our readers.

CONTACT US[ e ] [email protected][ p ] 434-202-0553

t h e c e n t r a l v i r g i n i a s p o r t s a u t h o r i t y

scrımmageplayvol 5 . issue 8 :: december 13, 2013

Thought ProcessHow Chase Stokes’ hoops IQ give WAHS its edge page 7

RebuIldIng All ARound THe AReA

bARbouR And AHS bACk AT IT

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ALL IN THE SAME BOAT An area-wide rebuild begins05

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AN ATHLETIC PROGRAM What happens when coaches get along

BRAIN TRUSTGetting inside Stokes’ head

STAYING HUNGRY Barbour and AHS picking right up

GAME TIMESTAB tops Blue Ridge

?

Off running againMonticello’s Lyra Payne flies down the court in her team’s 75-46 win over Orange County. The Mustangs are one of the few teams in the area returning the bulk of their roster after making a trip to the Siegel Center in Richmond for the state final four. Payne is one the key contributors back in the fold along with Molly Shephard and Meghan Comer. With so many players returning, the two-time defending JD champs still appear to be the team to beat. ✖ (Photo by Ashley Thornton)PR

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Family

ABOVE » Local fans have done a terrific job of creating positive home court experiences through-out the area like the environment at Miller, but occasionally spectators can lose perspective.

Using proper fanaticismEveryone has a role to play on game day. It’s spelled out in the terms we use to identify the parts of the puzzle.

Coaches coach. Players play. Officials offi-ciate. Spectators spectate.

If everyone lives up to their title, every-thing seems to go pretty smoothly.

That spectator one sometimes seems to be the stumbling block. Spectators and par-ticularly parents struggle with how to handle their role all the time. Too often there’s more negativity than anything coming out of the bleachers and stands, particularly directed at officials and coaches.

That’s one thing during football season when the fan base is often separated from the actual game by a track and pavement, but in a gym’s intimate setting, you’re right on top of the action and can have more of an impact. Players — and most importantly your son or daughter if you’re a parent — can hear

your interaction with the game better than almost any sport, especially in quieter game situations.

That’s a powerful, powerful tool and a unique quality about basketball. There’s a rea-son why when people talk about venues that are tough to play in front of, basketball almost always tops the list. Duke’s Cameron Indoor and Kansas’ Phog Allen Field House in college hoops or the The Oracle, Golden State’s home court in the NBA, are just a few examples. And we’re all for student sections making environ-ments tough on opposing teams. But fans have a lot of power in basketball.

And, like millions before me, I’ll borrow from Spiderman — with great power comes great responsibility.

Officials are going to make bad calls. Coaches are going to make strategic mistakes. Players are going to turn the ball over.

The problem with all that for a parent?

CornerPRESENTED BY

Criticizing it isn’t your role. You most likely aren’t qualified to be the coach and you most certainly didn’t put in the work that week to be the coach for that game. You just bought a ticket. You didn’t put in the preparation to play or serve as the referee either. Simply speaking? You haven’t earned the right to play those roles. You’ve earned the right to watch the game.

Don’t insert yourself into any other role. It only has negative consequences. A coach certainly isn’t going to critique in the heat of the moment well. Most coaches would prefer a single voice policy — the idea of keeping the attention of players and being the only source of teaching or coaching during a game rather than poten-tially conflicting information coming from the stands. If you want to weigh in, pick a better time to do it than during the game.

Constantly criticizing the officiating isn’t going to win anyone any battles either. Rarely does a game turn on a call or even a perceived pattern of calls. This year in particular there have been rule adjust-ments that are going to change how the game’s being called with regards to hand checking.

Unless you as a parent spent your time to go to an officiating clinic, odds are good you don’t know that specific rule better than the official. Don’t bother trying to be an official and a fan at once.

Remember instead that everyone has a role to play. Make sure you know yours. ✖

Scrimmage Play and Triple C Camp partner up to cover fam-ily issues related to youth and prep sports in our Family Corner.

Bart Isley,CRE ATIVE DIRECTOR

QuarterFirstAll in the same boatArea-wide rebuild begins in basketball By Bart Isley

Matt Temple is one of the few marquee players back after an exodus and shuffle of talent. (John Berry)

At first glance, the entire area seems to be entering a boys basketball season with a lot more questions than answers. The 2013 class was one of the more loaded in recent memory, stacked with impact seniors.

Throw in a tumultuous offseason that in-cludes a slew of key transfers and, all told, just three of the 16-member first and second team All-Scrimmage Play squads are back suiting up in Central Virginia this season, and one of those three have changed teams. First teamer Chase Stokes (check out page 7 for more on him), former Fluvanna star, now STAB starter Jalen Harrison and Madison County stalwart Matt Temple are the remaining three.

A smattering of honorable mention players also return — STAB’s Parker Morris, Western’s Sam Chisholm, Madison’s Bobby Ford, former Blue Ridge star Leon Straus who is now at Charlottesville, the Black Knights’ Isaiah Green — but it’s not a bumper crop of returning stars.

But an emerging group of young, talented players that were just a year away last season seem poised to take the stage this season.

Albemarle High is re-tooling after graduat-ing second team All-Scrimmage Play star Harmon Hawkins, and they’re going as young as Albemarle has ever gone under coach Greg Maynard. For the first time in 25 years, Maynard will have a pair of freshmen on the varsity squad with Jake Hahn and Austin Kas-tra playing big-time roles for the Patriots.

STAB has seasoned vets Morris and Harrison in the fold, but they’ll rely heavily on budding star Javin Montgomery-DeLaurier who played extensively last year and appears to have taken a major step forward during the offseason. Sopho-more Kareem Johnson is also set to make some noise for the Saints as are freshman Tanner Morris and sophomore Bobby Nicholson.

Fluvanna County’s squad underwent the most drastic change with eight graduates and

five transfers off last year’s 13-man roster. Jef-ferson District player of the year Vinny Agee and Harrison were among the transfers, and gradu-ates like Dashon Tibbs and Brad Bullock won’t be easy to replace. Freshmen like Aamir Simms will have to play a major role earlier than expected.

Miller underwent a coaching change with the departure of Scott Willard and the instal-lation of Ralf Melis as the program’s new leader. The Mavericks also graduated Tony Washington, Grayson Gunner and Travis Hes-ter and lost key transfers like Isaac Copeland and Franklin Porter in the transition. Cameron Smith, who has a slew of Ivy League offers, seems poised to take the reins at Miller and Davon Smith and Connor Schroeder will also be key factors for the Mavericks.

Monticello has to re-work after the gradu-ation of its trio of speedy guards — James Banks, Jhalil Mosley and Denzel Terry — in ad-dition to leading scorer Jahvon Shelton. They’ll turn to Sam Colasuonno and Savion Thomas among others as Robert Shelton enters his third season as the Mustangs’ head coach.

Woodberry faces a similarly tough task replacing Doug Randolph, but the Tigers will lean on uber-talented sophomore Sacha Killeya-Jones who already has a collegiate of-fer as well as two familiar names from football in Greer Martini and Hunter Etheridge.

The list of rebuilding teams goes on, but the exciting silver lining? The next crop of stars is getting ready to break out. ✖

go online »For morehead to our website at: www.scrimmageplay.com

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All in the same boat

BELOW » Some things never change, and Madison alumus David Falk (2010) playing above the rim at Eastern Mennonite University is one of them. (EMU sports information)

College UpdateFalk coming into his own at EMU By Bart Isley

It was only a matter of time, right? Madison County alum David Falk was one of the most explosive post players this area’s seen in the post, delighting fans with dunks and blocks on a regular basis as the Mountaineers flour-ished from his sophomore year until his final game, a state championship win at the Siegel Center in Richmond in March of 2010.

Now Falk is in the midst of a breakout junior season at Eastern Mennonite. Falk has exploded this year, averaging 13.3 points and 14.4 rebounds per game for the Royals who started the year 3-3. Those 14.4 boards are far and away the team’s leading total. Falk is particularly potent on the offensive glass where he’s hauling 5.6 rebounds per game, an astronomical figure.

He’s shooting 53.6 percent from the floor too while playing more than 30 min-utes per contest, which is no easy task as he’s developed his jump shot and expanded on his game from further out on the floor and become as important on offense as on defense.

Falk’s tear kicked into gear in the third game of the year when he scored 22 points and hauled in 15 rebounds while blocking four shots against Elizabethtown.

Those numbers are all an incredible jump from where Falk sat the last two years as a rotation big man for EMU averaging around seven points and five rebounds as a sopho-more. He had to earn his chance to shine for the Royals and that effort appears to have taken his game to a new level.

None of this comes as a surprise to those in Madison who witnessed the Mountaineers incredible 2010 state championship squad, the core of which went 54-1 over Falk’s final two seasons in high school. Falk had 10 points and eight rebounds in his final high school game, a 41-38 victory Altavista in the state title game. He shared the spotlight at Madison with Logan Terrell and Jerrell Carter. Now at EMU, he’s carving out an even bigger reputation for himself and the one he left at Madison was awfully impressive in its own right. ✖

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B R A I NT R U S TS T O R Y B Y B A R T I S L E YP H O T O S B Y A S H L E Y T H O R N T O N

obody is suggesting

Chase Stokes is slow.

That’d be absurd if

you’ve watched him play

any of three sports at

Western Albemarle.

But in basketball in particular, there

are players whose feel for the game

and understanding of spacing, strategy

and concepts makes them appear

quicker or faster than they already are

because they anticipate.


N

dixondisposal.comdixondisposal.com

As the old coach’s adage goes, you can’t teach speed, but you can teach players to anticipate the game’s movement to the point where everything moves faster.

“He’s not a jet speed-wise, but he’s a very good athlete and his mind makes him so much quicker than he is,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “He really processes the game and really makes great rotations.”

When players grasp the idea of thinking through the game early in their career instead of relying solely on their athleticism, it often pays huge dividends. Stokes figured that part of the game really early — around 10 years old actually when he laced up in Excel basketball under the tutelage of Dr. David Diduch.

“He was a really good coach to start out with,” Stokes said. “He taught me a lot about the game and ran a lot of good plays even at the Excel level. I started learning pretty young that I was going to be one of the slower guys physically on the court so I had to figure out some way to get myself there.”

While Stokes, at 6-foot-3, has a significant set of physical advantages, his willingness to plug into the mental side of the game has helped him maximize those advantages. That’s why instead of only being able to fill one gap for the Warriors, Stokes can essentially be the squad’s wild card.

“He’s such a complete basketball player,” Maynard said. “He scores, he guards the other team’s best offensive threat on the perimeter. We play him everywhere from one to four, he’s been a luxury for me.”

Stokes is a big reason why Western Albemarle is poised for a big

season in 2013-2014. With three years as a significant contributor already under his belt, the ability to play anywhere from the one to the four and a knack for taking whatever the defense gives him, Stokes is one of the surest things in a year of upheaval and turnover in local boys basketball.

He’s gotten there, in part, because he can outthink opponents and hone in on weaknesses with his understanding of the game’s smallest details. He’s a throwback athlete, never content to focus on a single sport. During high school he first added soccer to his varsity resume, a sport he played a great deal of growing up. He was a game-changing force this year for the Warriors, giving them a tall forward who was a matchup nightmare for opposing defenders. He finished as a second team all-Jefferson District selection while

“He’s such a complete basketball player. He scores, he guards the other team’s best offensive threat on the perimeter. We play him everywhere from one to four.” — Darren Maynard


dixondisposal.comdixondisposal.com

William Grupp

D e n t i s t r y

SUPPORTING THE FUTURE SPORTS STARS OF TOMORROW

C o m p r e h e n s i v e C a r e F o r y o u r W h o l e F a m i l y

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Best of luck to our 2013 student athletes as they embark on their college careers.

Maiah Bartlett University of Mary Washington LacrosseMiles Davis St. Joseph’s University LacrosseBlissie DuBose University of North Carolina Field Hockey Will Eppard Stevenson University LacrosseTyler Gimple University of Mary Washington SwimmingWill Grossman Colorado College Lacrosse Allie Nicholson University of Virginia CrewLloyd Smith Bates College LacrosseStewart Staunton University of Virginia SquashAaron Stinnie James Madison University FootballCatherine Towers Gettysburg College Lacrosse

C o n gr at u l at i o n s

scoring 12 goals and notching three assists for the district champion Warriors.

His soccer experience has paid major dividends on the hardwood as well. Maynard points to his endurance as a big factor in his success — Stokes never seems to wear down or even get tired. He gets stronger as the game wears on. But it’s also helped make him a more creative player on the court.

“I think soccer definitely helps with the flow of the game,” Stokes said. “You just kind of have to get open improvise and if you bring that to basketball, if you’re not the fastest guy, you (at least) aren’t as mechanical.”

But Stokes didn’t stop at basketball and soccer either. This fall, he hit the gridiron and instantly became one of the area’s top big play threats at wide receiver. He earned second team All-JD honors there too in his first season of football, hauling in 562 yards and nine touchdowns as part of a team that took a share of the district crown while posting a 10-2 record. It seemed only natural to put Stokes out on the boundary, where he could make fades and deep balls like they were rebounds. Stokes has a knack for getting timing jumps and getting after the ball in the air.

“I like jumping around, getting rebounds and maybe a blocked shot here or there,” Stokes said. “When I was younger, playing (former Fluvanna standouts) YaYa (Anderson) and Vinny (Agee), even though he was younger than me, they were always just bouncing around and I wanted to emulate that.”

He also proved during football just how physically and mentally tough he is, thriving in a physically-punishing sport he’d barely played. There were times where Stokes refused to go down, fighting through multi-player tackles for extra yardage, like he was driving to the basket and absorbing contact on a foul.

“He’s a very tough kid,” Maynard said. “He’s physically tough too but he’s extremely mentally tough. He’s just a winner. Whatever you need him to do he can do it.”

In basketball, the Warriors have needed a lot from him. Maynard brought Stokes up late in his freshman year and

“I just started learning everything right then and

now it’s second nature. I’ve had that time to prepare.”

— Chase Stokes


laid a critical foundation for the next three years. “When (Maynard) brought me up near the end,” Stokes

said. “I just started learning everything right then and now it’s second nature. I’ve had that time to prepare.”

With that knowledge base built up, he’s filled a different role from game-to-game for the Warriors, adapting to whatever Western needs. Maynard’s program has a history of producing players like that that can play within the system and make their presence felt in a variety of different ways. It’s a development track that calls to mind current James Madison University guard Christian Pierce’s own career arc just before Stokes joined the varsity.

“I think that’s a very good comparison,” Maynard said. “We thought Chase looked like a young Christian two or three years ago and he’s developed right along that path. Christian was a little bigger and maybe a little bit better deep shooter. But Chase does everything else pretty much as well as Christian did and that’s a compliment to Chase.”

Now the Warriors are in position for a big 2013-2014 season with Stokes, experienced scorer Jake Maynard, defensive stopper Will Mason, versatile guard Eli Sumpter and seasoned post standout Sam Chisholm all leading the way.

“I’ve been playing with some of the guys like Sam Chisholm every year of our lives, and then Eli and Jake we started playing in middle school, in sixth grade,” Stokes said. “Now that we’re all in the system, it’s been really fun.”

Stokes is the glue that makes it all work for a Western team that should have a huge impact on the Jefferson District race. He’s the versatile star who can make opposing defenses pay in so many ways while wreaking havoc on the defensive end.

See, nobody is saying Chase Stokes is slow. But his brain is what’s moving faster than nearly everyone else’s.

Which means he’s adjusting. He’s adapting. He’s analyzing.

He’s anticipating.And when that happens? The opposition is the only thing

that looks slow. ✖

HST a y i n g

Story By Ryan Yemen < poss > photos by Ashley Thornton


H u n g r yT a y i n gAt the next level all the athletes have it. it’s a drive to continuially improve, to add new dimensions to their game. in high school, all too often a young player makes an impact only to plateau. But those that do make an impact early on and reinvent themselves quickly draw the attention college coaches. Kk Barbour is that type of player.


273 Mayo Drive, St. George, VA • 434-985-2811 • www.BlueRidgeSchool.com • [email protected]

Boys Thrive at Blue Ridge School

Blue Ridge School

ALL BOYS • ALL BOARDING • ALL COLLEGE BOUND

The Blue Ridge School Outdoorsman Program teaches a boy the skills he needs to survive in the outdoors, and to appreciate the natural environment and our place in nature.

The boys learn orienteering, map-reading, deer behavior and tracking. They build up strength and fitness, and then master archery followed by weekly training and practice on the rifle range. Both require similar skills: patience, discipline and the ability to focus.

“We don’t go out to kill animals for the sake of it,” explains Mr. Vinton Bruton who heads the program. “And when we put that roast on the table we honor that animal, its life and the memories it gave us.”

September 27, 2013.indd 1 10/21/13 1:08 PM

T hen I’m just a post player -- Barbour

Barbour could easily be penciled in as a pure post presence, and there’s a lot of time she has to spend playing that role. But second year coach Rachel Proudfoot has a vision for this program. It’s is to make sure that her players develop beyond just a winning high school program. She sees untapped talent in area that has not exactly drawn a lot of attention from Division 1 coaches at the collegiate level, and in particularly at the public school level. As it stands right now, former St. Anne’s-Belfield standout Sarah Imovbioh (class of 2011) is the last high profile player to come through the area and land at a major program at the University of Virginia, but that’s private school. You have to go back to Shawntae Payne (class of 2009) from Charlottesville to find the last public school player from the area to land at the D1 level — she just finished up playing for Coppin State in Maryland.

Think about the path Barbour could have been put on. It would be too easy to peg the lengthy yet athletic player as a staple in the paint for Albemarle. That’s not what’s happening at all, and as a result it’s making Albemarle one of the best turnaround stories since Monticello started righting the ship a few years ago. With Proudfoot putting so much confidence in the versatility of players like Hussainia and Hairston and counting on the consistency down low from Anderson, Barbour has developed into a jack of all trades that has major potential at the next level.

As a sophomore last year, Barbour stepped out of the box a bit and became a more polished passer and a great option to help break opposing presses. Her abilities to bring the ball up the court put teams in a tough spot. As the season progressed, she became more confident in taking what defenses wanted her to — outside shots. At her size, teams have no choice but to be prepared for her height and athleticism underneath the hoop. There’s simply no way to stop both and as such, Barbour shows she can hit the outside shots.

“People see that I’m 6-feet tall and so then (think) I’m just a post player,” Barbour said. “But that’s great because then I can come out and shoot, I can handle the ball. Team’s will see the spots where I shoot and then say ‘Oh, okay, she can shoot.’”

One year later, Barbour isn’t just experimenting with the role of the do-it-all player, she’s thriving. She’s as much of a 3-point threat as she is to grab a board off the glass in the paint and picking up an and-one. Her ball handling skills are even better now and make her a natural fit at guard, an added bonus.

“This year I’m trying to get my teammates more involved, make that extra pass,” Barbour said. “I really want to make this a team offense, to get everyone involved.”

Yet the true focus for Barbour is defense. While she’s


273 Mayo Drive, St. George, VA • 434-985-2811 • www.BlueRidgeSchool.com • [email protected]

Boys Thrive at Blue Ridge School

Blue Ridge School

ALL BOYS • ALL BOARDING • ALL COLLEGE BOUND

The Blue Ridge School Outdoorsman Program teaches a boy the skills he needs to survive in the outdoors, and to appreciate the natural environment and our place in nature.

The boys learn orienteering, map-reading, deer behavior and tracking. They build up strength and fitness, and then master archery followed by weekly training and practice on the rifle range. Both require similar skills: patience, discipline and the ability to focus.

“We don’t go out to kill animals for the sake of it,” explains Mr. Vinton Bruton who heads the program. “And when we put that roast on the table we honor that animal, its life and the memories it gave us.”

September 27, 2013.indd 1 10/21/13 1:08 PM

all over the floor on offense, on the other side of the ball, the Patriots need her in the paint and need her to make sure that in Proudfoot’s aggressive defensive scheme she stays out of foul trouble. There’s only one way to do that.

“Defensively, I’m just trying to move my feet and make sure I don’t get beat off the dribble because I’m used to just blocking shots and that’s not always going to happen,” Barbour said. “That’s how you get in foul trouble. So I’m really trying to make sure my feet are moving off the dribble.”

Proudfoot see’s the improvement and is watching Barbour round out into a finished product ready to pursue a collegiate career.

“We keep working on her defense,” Proudfoot. “She’s so much faster on her feet. You can see her working through the dribble. On offense, you see her with her head up the whole time, she makes those dime passes. It’s nice to see that she’s healthy right now and then just what she does overall, the decision making, everything.”

Before the season began, there was a buzz around Barbour as she entered her pivotal junior season. In her first game this year, she was being watched by Virginia Commonwealth University. While the recruiting gauntlet is daunting for most athletes, Barbour is relishing in it so far.

“There’s no pressure because I love playing basketball and it’s everything I’ve ever worked for,” Barbour said. “Having the colleges, universities come out and look at me, that just makes me want to work harder.”

And so the game is on. Two years ago, the Patriots finished in eighth place in the Commonwealth. Last year they made

the tournament final and qualified for the second tier of the postseason. This year in the revamped VHSL, Albemarles comes into the Jefferson District as the most qualified contender to end Monticello’s two year reign a top of the standings.

Nonetheless, the Patriots don’t feel like there’s a plateau they’ve hit, only higher expectations they’ve capable of meeting. As great as last year was, this team still thinks it could be better.

“The thing about us now is that last year we played as a couple of players, now we’re more together as one team.” Barbour said. “Last year some of us would be on or off, now it’s like we’ve got everyone contributing together and that makes a big difference.”

Kendrick Hairtson playing point guard is only going to help. Just a week into the season Barbour is excited about the development

T here’s no pressure -- Barbour


Barbour and Anderson (above) and Housaini are all

smiles this year after a breakout out campaign last

year’s playoff run.

her teammate has made.“She’s the general on the floor and I’ve played with her since

she was a freshman and to see where she’s come over that time, it’s just amazing,” Barbour said.

Then you have Hairston who looks like she’s poised to be the next big thing for Albemarle after showing great promise last year. Hairston’s slashing style is blending well with her height and athleticism, giving Proudfoot another ‘tweener that can play at 2, 3 or 4 to go along with Barbour. That’s helped down low for the post players defensively.

“Our whole team is starting to get rebounds so that’s taking a lot of pressure off of Alexis and I because we’ve been the main rebounders,” Barbour said.

Everything is in place for the Patriots to make waves, even bigger ones than they made last year. What makes this team different and more dangerous last year is the head of steam it comes in with in a second year coach and the results from the previous season.

“Our season started as soon as the last one was over,” Proudfoot said. “I told them that more girls needed to play summer ball. Before it was just Kendrick and KK that were playing in the summer, all of the sudden we had the whole team playing together.”

It’s a bit of a different story than Proudfoot had previously.

Sometimes coaches take over teams and have immediate success with a large and driven senior class. Not so at Albemarle, the drive is behind its youth, making life all the better on the court.

“Having almost everyone back — listen, six years ago I took over a program and lost six seniors the next year and that was rough — and so here in a second year program to have what we have, that makes a huge, huge difference,” Proudfoot said. “We have a lot of girls that are getting ready to play in college. That’s big.”

As for the Patriots’ big name, Barbour’s just setting the example of what happens when talent meets coaching. On top of that, it’s coaching that is dead set on keeping athletes playing through college.

“It’s great to see that she’s working on her weaknesses all the time,” Proudfoot said. “And then she handles the ball so well so that’s great to see because we know she’s a guard when she gets to college, she’s not going to play the five or four.”

And while Barbour might be the first since Payne back in 2009 to get the chance to play in the spotlight at a Division I school two years from now, it looks like Proudfoot has a pipeline she’s all too ready to provide as the team rallies around it’s recent success. All this program has to do now is keep buying into what made it so good last year and that was pretty definitive. A Proudfoot team plays defense aggressively and on the other end, it does a little bit of everything with the kind of athletes that now have the skillset and confidence to do just that.

“We just have to stay hungry and keep focusing on defense and unselfish ball,” Proudfoot said. “I don’t think anything else is more important.” ✖


St. Anne’s-Belfield boys basketball is just starting to put the pieces together, but if the first returns are any indication, the Saints are in for an exciting year.

STAB rolled past Blue Ridge 76-41 Tuesday night, with the Barons retooling around a group of young, undersized players. It was a rare win for the Saints over Blue Ridge.

“I think I’m 1-15 or something like that but that one was awesome,” said STAB coach Brian Kent. “It’s a good way to start off the year.”

The Saints’ night got started with a Javin Montgomery-Delaurier monster dunk in transition. Things slowed down the rest of the first quarter, but STAB got moving after that with Montgomery-Delaurier cleaning up on the boards with 13 first half rebounds. He also finished with three assists.

“We’re pretty athletic and we’re going to want to push the ball,” Kent said. “The sky’s the limit for (Montgomery-Delaurier). He can see the floor and he did a nice job of finding the guys (in transition).”

With Montgomery-Delaurier’s effort underneath on the glass and Parker Morris finding a rhythm during the second quarter and scoring 11 of his 20 total points during the frame, STAB built a 38-21 lead at the break. STAB kept rolling after halftime too, as Fluvanna transfer Jalen Harrison poured in 10 of his 16 points during the third quarter. Harrison dominated on the low block as Blue Ridge struggled to matchup with the Saints’ newest addition. According to Kent, he’s seamlessly integrating himself into the flow

STAB sophomore Jalen Harrison goes up for two of his 16 points against Blue Ridge. (Ashley Thornton)

STAB 76, Blue Ridge 41Saints finally get past Barons, show great promise By Bart Isley

for the Saints. “He fits right in, he’s not a selfish player,

he’s just an athlete so he’s going to do whatever it takes to win,” Kent said. “I think it’s working well.”

Harrison added six boards to his 16-point effort. STAB senior Sam Lorenzo, finished with eight rebounds. Kareem Johnson finished with 11 points on the night to round out the double digit scorers for the Saints. John Woodson, a sophomore, fished out four assists.

Tanner Morris, a freshman, had seven points in the first half off the bench, burying a big 3-pointer during the second quarter run.

The Barons are struggling to find their footing with a host of new faces and the injury to forward P.J. White that ended his football season and will keep him out of basketball.

“I think we need to do a better job of going back to some basic things,” said Blue Ridge coach Bill Ramsey. “There’s not a lot of room for error. In previous years you could make mistakes and overcome them with talent and size -- particularly size. We’ve got to do a better job...on things that we can control.”

Affana Offor led the Barons with 12 points, going 6 for 7 at the free throw line. Cal Ramsey finished with 10 on the night. ✖

The Saints have a pair of key Prep League matchups ahead including a bout with Christchurch on December 14 and then back-to-back road trips split between the Holliday break with Fork Union and then Woodberry Forest on December 17 and January 7.

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Ryan Thomas’ athletic exploits are pretty well documented. The Albemarle runner is the area’s top cross country runner by virtue of winning the individual title in the Ragged Mountain Cup and finishing second in the 5A state meet.

He’s also the reigning state indoor 1000-meter champion and has won nine individual district or regional championships dur-ing his high school career.

The Columbia-bound senior’s off-field exploits, however, are just as impressive. Thomas was recently named by the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame as the state’s top male student-athlete after joining fellow local Josh Malm as a finalist earlier this year.

Thomas carries a 4.57 GPA and has earned straight A’s throughout his high school career. He volunteers both as a tutor for middle school students and at the Albemarle County Senior Center. He’s also a leader for the Fellowship of Christian Ath-letes.

Thomas burst on the scene as a freshman when he won the national indoor mile for freshmen in New York. Clearly that stan-dard of excellence merely set the tone for how he approached everything in his high school career.

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Success Story: Christian HackenbergThere aren’t many athletes that can

say they’ve been under the recruiting spotlight like Fork Union’s Christian Hackenberg. From the day he com-mitted to Penn State back in 2011, his decision was questioned by both local and national media. Hackenberg never faltered on his decision and instantly became the face of the Nittany Lions’ attempt to crawl out of the unprec-edented situation that plagued the pro-gram. Hackenberg has helped weather the storm, and after just one year under center at PSU, is one of the best feel good stories in college football.

As a sophomore at Fork Union, Hackenberg drew the attention of col-legiate coaches after he helped lead then coach Micky Sullivan’s team to a VISAA Division 1 championship in 2010 against Collegiate. Two years later, Hackenberg was front and cen-ter in getting the Blue Devils back to the title game, this time against

Liberty Christian.His efforts in high school

earned him offers from the likes of Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida and Alabama, but Hackenberg had his sights set on Penn State.

The results? Hackenberg earned Big Ten freshman of the week twice during the season and finished with 2,995 yards passing (second best in the conference) and 20 touchdowns to just 10 interceptions on the year. As such he won the Big Ten’s freshman of the year award which is named after Darrell Thompson from Minnesota and Antawn Randle-El from Indiana. In an example of the world being oh so small, Hackenberg threw a lot of his high school-era passes at FUMA to Randle-El’s son, D.J., now at Bryant University.

Hackenberg had an amazing journey to get to Penn State. It looks like that was just the beginning.

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Seamless transitionBuckingham’s football-basketball relationship is perfect

T he math doesn’t add up. Buckingham County has put its football team deep into November every year since 2009, this year deeper than ever since 2002. It’s bas-ketball team? It’s been in the playoffs the same way, its best run most recently

coming in 2010 as it went as far as the state final. All of its key players play both football and basketball. How?

It’s a rainy Tuesday, the last week of November, Thanksgiving week. Knights football coach Craig Gill and his staff are prepping their squad for Gate City. They’d far sooner be outside, but the conditions have them in the middle school gym. As we do every year at this time of year, my colleague Bart Isley and I roll out to see a practice for one of the few reamainging squads left in football. Basketball hasn’t started quite yet, what else would we do?

We get there, gather stories, have our usual fun with the coaching staff we’ve come to know over the years at Buckingham and then the question finally comes out – why is the team practicing in the middle school gym, does basketball coach Russ Gowin have the bas-ketball team practicing in the high school gym? The answer is a resounding no.

What makes the Buckingham football-basketball paradox so interesting is that two weeks before this I see Gowin after the Knights defeat James River in the first round. He’s lost his entire starting lineup from last year, a playoff team. I ask him about it and he’s excited about the young group he has, the veterans on the football team that will help bol-ster his team. He tells me he’s already postponed his December games, a move that’s wise, but still impressive given that it’s only the second week of November.

Now two weeks later when we wrap up with Gill and his players and ask him about hoops season butting heads with football he tells us that it never happens. Never? That’s unheard of. We’re used to hearing stories of athletes sitting out on season for another, much, much too often, and particularly with football and basketball on the boys side. Basketball standouts tend to be natural standouts in football. Name an elite Buckingham athlete over the last four years — Taylor Boyers in ’09-’10, Caleb White ’10-’11, Tarian Ayres ’11-’12, Cam Johnson ’12-’13, they all played both sports and both at a high level.

As it turns out Gill and Gowin have a rare thing going. Gowin doesn’t discourage his play-ers from taking the gridiron where they might get hurt, and they have, most recently with Johnson breaking his arm last year in his senior year. Gill, a regular at every basketball game, never discourages his players from taking to the hardwood.

On top of that, Gowin refuses to hold basketball practice while football season is still going. The Knights are going to be a month behind everyone else they play when it comes to practice and it’s the biggest overhaul this hoops team has faced in more than a half decade.

Still, when Buckingham tops Gate City at home on December 1st, the man with the big-gest smile on his face isn’t Gill. It’s Gowin. Maybe he knows something that so many area basketball coaches don’t. If you’ll allow me to project a bit here, maybe Gowin understands that the winning his soon-to-be players get on the football field translates to the court. Maybe he sees the chemistry he needs his team to have on the court and doesn’t want to curb it. Maybe football helps to harden his players for basketball. Maybe he’s just a fan of

Buckingham everything… well, that’s not a maybe. He’s at seemingly every event at the school.

What Gowin is at the end of the day is a true player’s coach. The manner he conducts himself on the court is no different than he does off of it.

There are a select number of just simply out-standing examples of community driven coach-es in this area. Russ Gowain is one of them. That myself or Isley were taken back a bit when we stumbled on Buckingham’s football and basket-ball coaches coming to this arrangement of no overlapping practices or hoarding of talent is the real shame. We’ve come to expect that based on so many other relationships between football and basketball coaches over the years. This was so refreshing. And then when you look how both teams have fostered winning programs congru-ently — how isn’t this the standard by which oth-ers should be measured? It’s a small Division 2 school. Take note every-one else. It is being done at this level. Division 3, 4 and 5 schools have no excuse. ✖

“The man with the big-gest smile on his face isn’t Gill. It’s Gowin.”

Overtime


back talk »Is there a better football/basket-ball connection? Contact Ryan at: [email protected]

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The Orange County’s Stingers, a 12 and under football team. topped King George to win a state title this Novem-ber, 27-0 to earn a trip to Orlando to play in the national tournament. Youth football is the pipeline that supplies varsity programs, giving OCHS a great look at what’s to come. Congratulations to the Stingers on their amazing season!

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Luke Heinsohn turned four years of athletic success at Covenant into an opportunity to shine at the Division III level, excelling in both football and lacrosse at Washington & Lee University. Luke set the career points record for the Generals’ football team, and is the school’s all-time leading rusher and scorer with 3,397 yards and 332 points. In addition, he led the nation in scoring at 19.56 points per game as a senior. As an all-conference midfielder in lacrosse in his junior year, Luke scored 11 goals and dished out 13 assists for the Generals’ lacrosse team. As a senior, he scored 11 goals and doled out 14 helpers.

He’s done it all while always displaying the leadership andwork ethic fostered at Covenant that paved the way for his next step.

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Volume 5, Issue 8