‘It Got Away From Us’

Blues Squander Fourth-Quarter Lead

When Parry McCluer High School looks back at last week’s Class 1 state quarterfinal boys basketball contest, the Fighting Blues might look at that game as the one that got away.

The Blues squandered an 11point lead in the fourth quarter, falling to Region 1D champion Patrick Henry-Glade Spring 67-61 on Tuesday of last week at Virginia High School in Bristol. PM’s season ended against the same opponent in the same location last year, with Patrick Henry winning 84-60 in the state quarterfinals in 2025.

“It kind of got away from us,” said PM head coach Tyler Kerr of last Tuesday’s game. “It was really a gut punch for things not to go our way that last stretch. It was a painful last six minutes; it was right there and slipped away from us.

“[Only] one team gets to lift that trophy,” Kerr continued. “On any given night, it could have been a different outcome. That’s part of playing tournament basketball.”

After battling back from deficits of 10 and seven points in the first half, the Blues (22-5) took the lead for the first time since early in the third quarter when Quentin Rosser drained the first 3-pointer of the game for PM with 3:48 to play in the period. That was part of a 13-5 run to close the third for the Blues, and when Rosser and Jamier Jordan canned backto back treys to open the fourth stanza, PM had a 56-45 lead with 7:30 remaining in the contest.

That turned out to be the last hurrah for the Blues. Patrick Henry’s Kolby Hicks nailed a threepointer, and Jebediah Stewart converted an errant PM pass into an easy layup to trim the PM lead to 56-50, prompting Kerr to call the first of two quick timeouts in the final quarter.

“I just wanted to try to settle the troops there in that moment,” the PM coach explained. “I told them, ‘let’s keep being aggressive,’ trying to get us back in the groove. But when we went back out there, it was another couple of unforced turnovers, and it just kind of snowballed on us.”

The Blues went without a point for nearly five minutes after Jordan’s 3-pointer gave them the 11-point advantage and managed just two field goals the rest of the way. At the same time, PM uncharacteristically threw the ball away, committing six turnovers in the period, and with five minutes remaining, senior Nathan Glass was disqualified with his fifth foul.

The Rebels took advantage, reeling off 15 unanswered points before the Blues found the basket again. By the time PH big man Cade Caywood muscled his way to the basket with 2:38 to play, the Rebels went from down 11 points to a five-point lead, 61-56.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” Kerr said. “The biggest thing is you don’t want teams to go on 12-0, 14-0 runs. We didn’t make the shots to stop the bleeding when we needed to.”

“When you start missing a few shots and that lead cuts down a little bit, it seems like that basket gets a little tighter,” he continued. “A little bit of that happened to us, but that happens to any team. Late, I think we got a little hurried at times, and some of our passes were very uncharacteristic of us. We went cold at the wrong time. It’s unfortunate timing for us.”

Caywood paced the Rebels, who lost 87-56 to Region 1C champion Fort Chiswell (24-5) in the state semifinals on Friday to finish the season with a record of 24-4, with 22 points to lead a trio of PH players in double digits. Stewart added 16 points, while Hicks finished with 10.

Junior guard Langston Cook led all PM scorers with 25 points, while Glass and Rosser scored 12 points apiece, and Jordan chipped in eight.

The Blues did manage to stop the bleeding momentarily when Cook drove the lane for a layup to trim the deficit to 61-58 with 2:31 to go, but PM didn’t score again until Jordan found the basket from three-point range with only 40 ticks remaining.

The game started as if it might be a blowout. The Rebels opened the contest with a 14-3 run, and when Jay Barfield completed a fast break with 3:56 left in the first quarter, PH enjoyed a 10-point lead, 16-6.

But the Blues closed the period with a run of their own, outscoring the Rebels 12-3 in the last 3:42. Glass started the rally when he grabbed an offensive rebound, one of seven caroms in the game for the senior, and scored the stickback, and when Kyle Smals got free in the paint with just nine seconds left in the period, PM clawed back to within one point, 1918, heading into the second quarter.

The Rebels again got some separation in the second period, increasing the lead to seven points, 29-22, with 2:19 left before halftime, but again the Blues rallied. Cook scored a pair of buckets, and Jordan hit a baseline jumper with 10.3 seconds on the clock to pull the Blues to within one again, 29-28, at intermission.

“It comes from leadership,” Kerr said of his team’s first-half comebacks. “Our three captains – Sam [Griffin], Nathan [Glass] and Langston [Cook] – never really feel like they are out of it. [Our players] just have that ‘fight’ mindset. They never think they’re out of it and that they are just a couple of plays away.”

The third quarter was all PM. Griffin hit a 15-foot jumper to tie the game at 30-30, and Rosser hit a trio of treys. When Cook made one of two free throws at the 37-second mark, the Blues led, 50-43, a lead that would grow to 11 points before Patrick Henry’s final, decisive push.

“Everybody wants to talk about what you did poorly, but at the end of the day, the kids knew all of that,” said Kerr. “[In the locker room], I wanted to tell them how much I love each one of them, how much they mean to me and what they mean to our program. There’s only one team every year that can leave happy. We came up short, but I couldn’t be more proud of them. The heart that they showed goes beyond basketball. I hope the community sees how hard they played.”

After starting the season 0-2, the Blues won 22 of 25 games, claiming both the Pioneer District regular- season and tournament titles for the third consecutive year, going 10-0 in district action during the regular season.

The Blues will graduate three players: Glass, Griffin and Landon Orren. They look forward to returning a talented group, led by Cook, the Pioneer District player of the year, who became PM’s all-time leading scorer this season.

While PM didn’t reach its ultimate goal, Kerr had plenty of praise for the team’s season.

“To go 22-5, to win their district and to go back to the state, those are things nobody can ever take from these kids,” said the PM coach. “They might not know it now because it still hurts, but what they have done as a group should be celebrated, even though we came up short.”

“You hate to come up short, but to make it to the state twice in a row, I want the kids to know how much of an accomplishment that is,” Kerr continued. “It is very, very important that they know [that] and how blessed they are – and we are as a team – and as much as it stinks to come up short both times, I couldn’t be prouder. They’re a daggone good basketball team.”