Playing its first game in 13 days, the Rockbridge County High School boys basketball team had a strong first half before suffering a 57-30 home loss to Shenandoah District rival Stuarts Draft on Thursday night in Lexington.
It was the 11th consecutive loss for the Wildcats (3-14 overall, 1-9 district), who had last played on Jan. 23, when Roanoke Catholic dealt them a 72-36 home loss at the 12th annual Rock the Ribbon Roundball Shootout. Since the Jan. 23 loss, due to winter storm Fern and its aftermath, the Wildcats had limited practice time and no games. RC head coach Rob Winfield noted that the same was true for Stuarts Draft (10-6, 6-4), which hadn’t had a game in 13 days either. “We had limited practices, and so did they, and they must have done a better job at practice than I did, and that’s on me because we weren’t prepared,” said Winfield.
“We’ve all got to play a ton of games,” the RC coach added. “We’ve all got to have limited practices. I just didn’t do a good job of getting them ready to play four quarters.”
With the victory, the Cougars completed a sweep of the season series with the Wildcats. When the two teams met on Dec. 16 at Draft, the Cougars won 42-26.
In the rematch, the Wildcats started well, taking a 9-8 lead after the first quarter. Draft then outscored RC 12-6 in the second quarter to take a 20-15 lead into halftime.
The second half was a different story, though, as the Cougars went on an 11-0 run in the first four minutes of the third quarter and stretched their lead to 40-23 by the end of the period. In the third quarter, the Cougars outscored RC 20-7. Draft stayed comfortably ahead for the rest of the game, as the Wildcats’ offense became stagnant.
Reviewing his team’s performance, Winfield said, “Defensively, in the first half, we did a halfway decent job, and then in the second half, we took some quick shots, we had some bad turnovers, and it led to kind of a quick run.”
Derrick Moore led the Cougars with 20 points, sinking three 3-pointers, while Marko Veselinovic scored 10 points. Also contributing for Draft were Za’karre Hymes-Williams with eight points and Kabren Garrett with seven.
Leading the Wildcats, who had no players scoring in double figures, was Brayden Camden with nine points, while Bradi Ziegler scored eight, and Brenden Staley chipped in six.
The Wildcats were scheduled to start this week, which has five games in six days due to postponements, with district road games at Waynesboro on Monday and at Riverheads last night. They’ll continue district action at Buffalo Gap on Thursday before playing host to Fort Defiance on Friday, starting with junior varsity action at 6 p.m. on both nights. RC will then play host to Wilson Memorial on Saturday, with JV action getting under way at 1 p.m., before concluding the season at Alleghany next Wednesday, Feb. 18, starting with the JV game at 6 p.m.
ABOVE, Stuarts Draft’s Kabren Garrett holds onto the ball while RC junior guards Brayden Camden (left) and Christian Moore (23) surround him and RC junior forward Brenden Staley (1) watches. AT UPPER LEFT, Moore (far right) guards Stuarts Draft’s Brogan Fitzgerald (24) closely while other Draft players try to get open. AT LOWER LEFT, Staley holds onto the ball while junior teammate Johnathan Soriano Caceres stays close as two Cougars pressure Staley. Watching are RC junior guard Bradi Ziegler (5) and Moore. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photos)
