Playing one of its best defensive games this season, the Rockbridge County High School girls basketball team challenged Valley District rival Wilson Memorial before coming up short 38-35 on Saturday afternoon in Fishersville. It was a muchimproved performance from the Wildcats’ 81-24 road loss to district leader Stuarts Draft on Thursday.
The Wildcats (7-11 overall, 5-6 district) had previously lost 74-55 at home against Wilson Memorial (12-5, 10-1) on Jan. 6.
Unlike last month’s highscoring affair, the Wildcats were able to contain the Green Hornets’ offense for a lot of Saturday’s game. “It was a really good game,” said RC head coach Darrell Plogger, noting that the Wildcats did a great job coming back from a 14-point deficit..
“In the second half, we played great,” added Plogger, noting that the Hornets only made three shots from the floor in the half.
“We threw a little bit of different defense at their scorers,” Plogger said, noting that his team went with a triangle-and-two defense, combining man-to-man and zone defense to neutralize WM’s top two scorers. Plogger was especially proud of the defense by Bella Dorey and Lexi Samante.
The Wildcats were down eight points with less than a minute left in the game and cut the deficit to three. Genesis McCoy then had a good look at a 3-pointer, but the shot missed.
Lola Mulitalo led RC with 13 points and 13 rebounds, while Dorey scored six points.
SD 81, RC 24
With both teams playing their first game in nearly two weeks due to the inclement weather, the Wildcats suffered a 81-24 road loss to Stuarts Draft on Thursday night. Draft (15-2), which would improve to 10-0 in the district with a 70-32 win over Staunton on Saturday, is the only Shenandoah District team to beat WM this season. When the two teams met at Draft on Jan. 21, the Cougars won 61-40.
The Cougars, who had previously beaten the Wildcats 73-23 on Dec. 16 in Lexington, were also dominant in the rematch. Draft, which had hit 14 3-pointers in the Dec. 16 game, made 15-of-30 (50 percent) of its 3-point attempts on Thursday.
The game started slowly, with Draft taking a 10-6 lead before stretching it to 22-12 by end of the first quarter. In the second quarter, the Cougars outscored the Wildcats 32-4 to go into halftime up 54-16.
Draft continued to extend its lead, taking a 72-22 advantage into the fourth quarter before outscoring RC 9-2 in the fourth quarter.
While the Cougars shot 54.3 percent (25-of-46) from the field, the Wildcats shot just 32.1 percent (9-of-28). Also hurting RC were 28 turnovers, while Draft committed just seven turnovers.
Dorey led the Wildcats with 10 points, while Mulitalo paced RC with 10 rebounds and scored six points, and Madison Mangione chipped in four points and five rebounds.
The Wildcats were scheduled to start this week with home games against Waynesboro on Monday and against Riverheads last night. They’ll continue district action at home against Buffalo Gap on Thursday before playing at Fort Defiance on Friday. RC will conclude the regular season with a home game against Alleghany next Wednesday, Feb. 18. All three games are scheduled for 6 p.m. Before next Wednesday’s game, the Wildcats will honor their four seniors: Dorey, Mulitalo, Brooklyn Beverly and Natalie Samante.
Plogger said this week’s focus will be on advancing to the Region 3C tournament for the second year in a row. As of last weekend, the Wildcats were in 10th place in the region, and 12 teams advance.
