05 WRESTLER PUTTING CAP ON CAREER
13 WAHS SWIMMING KEEPS DRIVING
scr覺mmageplay THE CENTRAL VIRGINIA SPORTS AUTHORITY
New Wave Javin Montgomery-DeLaurier is the 21st century prototype for a collegiate recruit PAGE 7
VOL 5 . ISSUE 10 :: JANUARY 29, 2014
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YEARLY TRANSFORMATION CHS wrestler makes move from football
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NEW RELEASE STAB’s sophomore making waves
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TRACKING TIME Western Albemarle swimming moves forward
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GAME TIME Charlottesville boys top Western
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FRESH BLOOD Buckingham freshmen making a splash
13 WaHs sWiMMiNg MaiNtaiNs status quo
scrımmageplay vol 5 . issue 10 :: January 27, 2014
New Wave VOL 5 . ISSUE 10 :: JANUARY 29, 2013
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05 WrestLer puttiNg Cap oN Career
Javin-Montgomery-DeLaurie is the 21st century prototype of collegiate recruit page 7
S TA F F Bart Isley, Creative Director Bob Isley, Infrastructure Director Ryan Yemen, Creative Editor O N T H E COV E R St. Anne’s-Belfield sophomore Javin MontgomeryDeLaurier M I S S I O N S TAT E M E N T Local 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. CO N TAC T U S 4408 Ivy Commons, Charlottesville, VA 22903 [ e ] info@scrimmageplay.com [ p ] 434-202-0553
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PREGAME
The high ground Donnie Wilson from Fluvanna County gains position during the Albemarle Invitational as he and his team faced Monticello. The tournament featured five Jefferson District squads and Wilson and the Flucos were able to place third as a team. Western Albemarle edged the host, Albemarle for the championship. ✖ (Photo by Tom Pajewski)
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Family
Corner PRESENTED BY
ABOVE » Fluvanna assistant coach Jason Davis consoles former player YaYa Anderson after the Flucos fell in the state final four in 2011. The next year, Anderson led his team back to Richmond.
Bouncing back I once bricked a breakaway lay-up in middle school so enthusiastically that the ball bounded nearly all the way back to half court. It felt like it was the only topic of conversation at practice the next day. And the next. For at least a week, everyone from my coach on down to the guys on the squad who backed me up at power forward let me have it over that miss. It’s a brutal, brutal feeling to make a memorable or a crucial mistake in a game, but if you haven’t done something like that in a game you’re either the sweetest athlete ever (congratulations on that) or you’re just lying. If your team loses, in part because of that mistake, it’s even tougher to handle. The big question after a noticeable mistake though is how do you handle it? How do you bring first class sportsmanship to a low, frustrating moment. The answer? It isn’t easy.
For starters, don’t punch anything. This is pretty critical, as a local baseball player a few years back punched a water cooler in frustration after a loss and broke his hand, ending his season. So avoid that at all costs Don’t try and act like you don’t care either — like you’re too cool to worry about it or that it wasn’t really a mistake. That’s weak and inauthentic if you’re a passionate player. That’s nearly as bad as trying to put the blame on someone else. Which brings us to the first step in the right direction — own up to the mistake. While my lay-up was obviously completely on me, some times bad plays or mistakes are subject to the snowball effect — several smaller mistakes lead to the big mistake or the gameending play. Be accountable for your part in the play. Shirking the blame is only going to end in team chemistry problems and lost respect among your teammates.
Once you’ve been accountable, bounce back. Don’t let a play like that shake your confidence, or it’s going to lead to poor body language and a negative attitude which can cause teammates or coaches to lose confidence in your ability. Make the plays you’re supposed to make the next time you get a chance. If you blow a blocking assignment, execute next time. If you commit an error, fight for a walk or come up with a hit the next time you’re at the plate. If you brick a lay-up back to halfcourt, play good defense on the next possession and after the season is over, consider taking up wrestling next winter. Instead of over-reacting or getting down on yourself, keep it in perspective — it’s just a single play. You can learn from that mistake and get better. All good players have a short memory too. Make sure that’s part of your mental arsenal. If you can move on quickly, you’re increasing your value to your team and when you’re trying to overcome a mistake, that’s the thing you need to be thinking of first. ✖ Scrimmage Play and Triple C Camp partner up to cover family issues related to youth and prep sports in our Family Corner.
Bart Isley,
CRE ATIVE DIRECTOR
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First Quarter Yearly transformation CHS’ Kammauff off to an impressive start and finish By Ryan Yemen
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Wade Kammauff (bottom) is a model of success and cosistency at CHS. (Pat DiGregorio)
{ GETTING 100 } Kammauff’s win total each year. He won his 100th match January 25 against John Marshall by pin.
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en pounds and he’s in year-round shape. That’s what Charlottesville’s Wade Kammauff has to pick up and then shed in order to go from being one of the best offensive linemen in the area into arguably the top local wrestler at 170.
Each year he’s been at CHS, Kammauff’s met that challenge being his quiet, humble self and performed at an elite level all the while hitting the books as one of the top students in his class. And as the heart of wrestling season is now in full swing, Kammauff is off to an amazing start to his last year on the high school mat, at a svelt 170, down from 180 just this fall. The Charlottesville senior has gone 13-0 to start the wrestling season, and in the process not given up an offensive point thus far. And that makes his football to wrestling transformation all the more amazing. It’s hard enough coming out of football season healthy, much less put up the kind of performance CHS has come to expect in wrestling. “With the playoffs, football season goes into wrestling season,” Kammauff said. “So I go at it right away after football trying to get down to weight and also into a different type of shape.” In order to be effective at center for the Black Knights, Kammauff has played at 180 pounds the last two years, and just like he did last season, he’s wrestling at 170, one of the most competitive and elite weight classes. “It’s a different kind of shape because wrestling is a constant grind where in football it’s a five second play and then a break,” Kammauff said. “So where it’s a bunch of short sprints in football, wrestling is just one long race.” It takes Kammauff two to three weeks to make the transition, and while larger offensive linemen have the benefit at wrestling at the
higher weight classes without having to cut much weight, this Black Knight standout is not so lucky. Now deep into January, it’s clear Kammauff has found a familiar groove, and after three outstanding seasons, what rests ahead for him in February should be something to watch. “Obviously the hope is to go to states and place well there,” Kammauff said. “I want to wrestle in as many matches as I can and help to create a winning culture around the team.” He’s led by example already. After a 26-13 freshman year, Kammauff went 26-5 as a sophomore and beat Cabel Thomas by fall, the curretly top-ranked private school wrestler from Benedictine. Last year he took another step forward by finishing 28-3 and splitting a pair of matches with eventual state champion and district foe Powhatan’s Jake Tomlinson. Also as a junior, Kammauff surrendered just one offensive point during the regular season. At 13-0 to begin the ‘13-’14 year, Kammauff has 53 career pins to his name and earned his 100th pin January 25th, an amazing accomplishment given that he’s wrestled his entire career facing elite competition. Kammauff is a champion of the yeoman work ethic. If that wasn’t clear after his senior year in football, it should be crystal by the end of this wrestling campaign. How he manages all that and still thrives academically is a testament to what it means to be an elite student athlete. ✖
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College Update
We’ve gone digital
Blue Ridge’s Smith earning his minutes at Cornell
But you can have it in print too!
By Ryan Yemen If ever there was a local elite-level athlete that played beyond his statistics, one that was always better than his numbers, it was Blue Ridge alumnus Darryl Smith. Now at Cornell, Smith is making quite the impact as a true freshman for the Big Red, showing the same intangibles in the Ivy League as he did while playing for the Barons. In 14 games so far Smith is earling 16.2 minutes per game and contributing 4.2 points, 1.9 rebounds, 0.7 assists and shooting .469 from the field and .500 from the arc. His efforts after the first 10 games saw his minutes go up significantly as after the holiday break, Smith’s logged at least 20 minutes including a start against St. Bonaventure to begin 2014 where he had six points, five rebounds and a steal. His best game so far came against Stony Brook where he tallied 11 points and seven rebounds. It was a truly small world November 25th when the Big Red hosted Radford as Smith faced Fluvanna County alum YaYa Anderson for the first time and saw former VISAA Division 1 foe in Fork Union graduate
Kion Brown. Making his college debut all the more impressive is the total level of competition Smith’s gone up against. So far, Cornell has faced Syracuse, Louisville and Notre Dame in the team’s out-of-conference schedule. After that challenging slate to start and the team’s first win of the year against Oberlin, the Big Red now jump into Ivy League play and Smith’s numbers should only continue to rise. And while we just ran down his stats, anyone that’s seen Smith play knows that those are just a small sample of what he’s really doing on the court Smith came to Blue Ridge as a sophomore and helped get the Barons to VISAA Division 1 finals, helping to get the ball to standouts Cameron Anderson (Hampden Sydney) and Malick Kone (Rutgers). So playing beyond his age isn’t exactly a novel concept, he’s done it before, and quite well too. While Cornell has a long way to go to compete for an Ivy League title, it looks like it has a promising piece to the puzzle in place with the former perennial All-Scrimmage Play first teamer. ✖
BELOW » Former Blue Ridge standout Darryl Smith is making waves as a true freshman in the Ivy League now playing guard for Cornell. (Cornell Sports Information)
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he numbers are essentially gone in men’s college basketball. One, two, three, four and five — the position designations that have allowed fans for years to understand what role a player plays on a certain team have all but dissapeared. When it comes to running an offense, teams are trying to take advantage of specific matchups and changing things up game in and game out to adjust or stay ahead of the opposition. Recent rule changes, specifically with regards to hand checking, have opened the college game up and ST O creating a more free-flowing style of play. While it’s obviously still a huge help to have 7-foot behemoths in the post who can create at will from the block, it just doesn’t happen very often. Shaquille O’Neals show up maybe once in a generation. Instead, major college basketball teams are looking for one major trait in players that they’re recruiting — versatility. A player who can create instant mismatches and advantages because of their varied skill set and adjust on the fly are a soughtafter commodity. More specifically, players who are as tall as the power forwards of old but possess the skill set of a wing or a guard. A player who can bring the ball up the court, play facing the basket against a taller, slower defender or turn around and post up a shorter, quicker defender. Guys like St. Anne’s-Belfield’s Javin MontgomeryDeLaurier.
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“He’s at at that high level of college and as a professional and i know he respects him and sees the what he works. it’s a great matchup there” — bk
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The Saints’ sophomore checks in at around 6-foot-7 or 6-foot-8 and he moves and handles like a guard. He can run the floor, attack the basket in traffic or step out and hit from beyond the arc. He’s relentless on the boards too, where he’s hauling in 11.4 rebounds per game against a challenging Prep League schedule. “You watch the college game now and so many of these guys are 6-foot-8, 6-9 and they’re able push the ball up the floor, make the right reads, post up, knock down threes,” said STAB coach Brian Kent. “It’s what they’re looking for.” The blueprint for this type of versatile, adaptable player can be traced back to Chicago Bulls star Scottie Pippen. Pippen was a complete basketball player, a player who could morph from a creator (5.2 assists per game in his career) to a defensive stopper to a lead scorer (six of seven seasons in his prime he averaged more than 19 points per contest). Montgomery-DeLaurier is developing into that type of player. He’s grown from 6-foot-2 to a towering 6-foot-7 in short order. He’s also worked on expanding his game, maturing beyond the role early coaches carved out for him. “I remember coaches would put me in the post--’you’re tall, get in the post’,” Montgomery-DeLaurier said. “And then as I started to get more into basketball, my AAU coaches were like ‘no, that’s not gonna cut it’.” STAB assistant Leroy Hurd, who also serves as the Saints’ lead strength and conditioning coach, has also emerged as a well-suited mentor for the STAB sophomore. Hurd, who checks in at 6-foot-8, is a former standout whose collegiate career began at Miami before he moved on to UT-San Antonio. There he helped lift the Roadrunners to an NCAA tournament appearance out of the one-bid Southland Conference and eventually went on to an overseas professional career. Hurd had the chance to play point guard in high school which helped hone his ball handling and made him a much more effective and versatile collegiate player. “(Hurd) is great for him,” Kent said. “He’s been at that high level of college and as a professional and I know he respects him and sees the way he works. It’s a great matchup there.” He’s helped Montgomery-DeLaurier develop in a similar way, working on developing that guard skill-set when Montgomery-DeLaurier was just 6-foot-2 as a varsity freshman for the Saints. He started practice as a freshman on junior varsity, but by December he was the varsity’s sixth man and by the end of the season he was starting , improving by leaps and bounds during the year. It’s a remarkable development track in such a short time and it’s clear that MontgomeryDeLaurier is intent on putting in the work to become a truly elite player. “I’m obviously still working on my shot a lot and being able to handle the ball,” Montgomery-DeLaurier said. “But
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it’s good to be more versatile because you can offer programs more.” As he’s grown, he’s continued to expand his game, employing some of the post game that those early coaches had tried to get him to lean on as a youth player. In particular, he became a more fierce, relentless presence on the boards. This season he’s averaging a solid double double with 10.1 points and the 11.4 boards per game. He’s coming into his own as a defensive presence too as he learns to protect the rim, and he’s now averaging 2.5 blocks per game. “He just does all the right things,” Kent said. “(Even) his mistakes are good mistakes, they’re aggressive mistakes. We’re giving him that freedom.” Even the little things like his passing out of the post show the unique versatility the Montgomery-DeLaurier possesses — he’s dishing out nearly two assists per contest. “I worked on my ballhandling and my shot more so with coach Hurd every day,” Montgomery-DeLaurier said. “Over the summer it was just a grind almost every day with him, two-ball dribbling, ball handling and getting shots up.” That’s helped the Saints in a big way, a team that is packed with versatile players who can step up to most any challenge. There’s Jalen Harrison who can guard nearly anyone the Saints need to match up with and Parker Morris, who can handle the ball and knock down 3-pointers when STAB needs to light it up from beyond the arc. There’s lightning-quick Kareem Jackson and
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“Over the summer it was just a grind almost every day with him, two-ball dribbling, ball handling and getting shots up.” — JDM Morris’ younger brother Tanner who’s shown a lot of promise as a freshman. Throw in Sam Lorenzo and John Henson and things get interesting quickly for the Saints. “That’s the great thing about our team, we’re all so versatile that we can guard any position and we can switch on screens because we all have very versatile games,” Montgomery-DeLaurier said. “Everyone can do a little bit of everything.” What’s particularly exciting is that he’s a truly homegrown player with a huge ceiling and the ability to do so many things on the court. That hasn’t happened in some time in Central Virginia, a player that has the potential to be a high-major standout who’s grown up in the area. Players like Miller’s Andrew White (Kansas) and Marshawn Powell (Arkansas) have made stops here along
the way and have been incredibly impressive players. And while Fluvanna County’s YaYa Anderson is in the early stages of a budding career at Radford, Montgomery-DeLaurier has more longterm, high-end potential than anyone in recent memory. Not just because he’s 6-foot-7, but because of we can already do with that height. If he stays healthy and focused while continuing on this exponential development track he’s been on, he has a chance to be scary, scary good, which doesn’t happen often around here. He’s on his way to being perfectly suited for an increasingly wide-open collegiate game that will
require more and more of everything from players. “The game has slowed down for him,” Kent said. “He’s got it, the total package.” Kent saw the potential in Montgomery-DeLaurier early on, and since he’s been around the local game since before he laced up for Charlottesville High School, he knows just how special the STAB sophomore could be as far as the local scene is concerned. On last year’s preseason form submitted by area coaches to give local reporters an idea of what’s going on with their program, Kent wrote, “I also have a freshman, Javin Montgomery-DeLaurier who will play quality minutes behind Jeff (Jones) and Aaron (Stinnie). They say he is going to be 6’10, he wears an 18 shoe and he can handle the ball. You will be talking about this guy for several years. He is only 14.” Let the conversation begin. ✖
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___________ ___________ Tracking time
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Story by Bart Isley Photos by Bart Isley & Ashley Thornton
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__________ __________ Building a high school swimming and diving program is a particularly curious challenge. Few schools are blessed with on-site facilities, requiring extra time and energy from swimmers and parents just to get to a practice and most meet sites. It isn’t cheap to get pool time either, so there are limited practice hours to begin with depending on the budget of an athletic department. There’s not a ton of crowd support to speak of beyond parents, so swimmers don’t participate for the glory in front of their classmates like a football or basketball team. The great majority of the best swimmers at any given school are also year-round swimmers, so it’s quite possible that, like boys soccer has endured recently, the most talented, experienced players in a given discipline won’t join the team because they’ve already committed a ton of time to the sport through a club team. All that makes what Western Albemarle does year-in and year-out is flat out impressive, particularly at a school of just over 1,000 students. Chief among the Warriors’ slew of accomplishments is the girls squad’s three-straight Group AA state titles.
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If they have any interest in swimming, it's furthered by the fact that they can also get better for their primary sport. -- Bledsoe
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Kyle Benson (above) and Remedy Rule (below) are key cogs for Western’s boys and girls swim teams respectively.
This year — a year where they’re supposed to be rebuilding after two straight mass exoduses of talent that contributed for four seasons — they’re at it again. The Warriors kicked off the beginning of the heart of the swim and dive season with a sweep of the boys and girls swim and dive titles at the Ben Hair Memorial, the annual meet that features nearly all of the area’s swim programs. The real question is how. How does a program continually produce titles and championships with a small talent pool in a sport that needs to cast a pretty wide net? It starts at the top with a coach who is plugged into the school and doesn’t just arrive to coach swimming. Dan Bledsoe, who teaches at Western Albemarle, has been the co-head coach at Western for five years, and he’s usually joined on the deck by coach Diana Bowen. Bowen stepped aside for first-year coach Sophie Hyman this year, but the Warriors clearly haven’t missed much of a beat, testament to the work Bowen and Bledsoe did fostering a strong program. Bledsoe’s adherence to a strong dry-land training segment is one of the most critical factors in the Warriors’ success. Over the last few years, the Warriors have strengthened team bonds and camaraderie through their work outside the pool, a relatively fresh development in high school swimming that has trickled down from the college ranks. “It becomes a great tool because then I can (seek out) athletes,” Bledsoe said. “If they have any interest in swimming, it’s furthered by the fact that they can also get better for their primary sport.” It’s particularly challenging for student athletes who have only participated in swimming as an athlete because the workouts demand something entirely different than swimming laps in the pool on a daily basis. They improve a lot of facets in athletic performance beyond the team bonding benefits. While the Warriors have relied on traditional training methods in the past, this year they’ve moved to something particularly unique, employing SEAL Team PT run by instructor James Hargrove. During dry lands now, you can see Western swimmers carrying each other, lifting each other over their heads repeatedly, doing jumping jacks together, carrying logs and tackling any other challenge Hargrove puts in front of them. John McGuire, a former Navy Seal, founded SEAL Team PT, a team-oriented workout program based on SEAL training approaches and concepts in Richmond and it’s expanded around the region, including adding Hargrove, a former Naval aviator who now flies commercial jets, among a slew of other instructors. “They rely on their teammates and it builds confidence and it builds teamwork,” Hargrove said. “Everybody works together, the strongest help the weakest and everybody gets exactly what they’re looking for. It’s a little different with an athletic team because they’re all similarly fit, but it’s about
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Western’s swim team regularly participates in SEAL Team PT as part of their dry land workouts.
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___________ building that team camaraderie.” Hargrove’s own children swam for Bledsoe’s Boar’s Head Club team during the summer. The club team did some of the workouts and they went well, which prompted discussion about doing it with the Western squad as part of their dry training regimen. Virginia Commonwealth University’s basketball team uses the program and it’s been written about in publications like the Wall Street Journal and Style Weekly. Hargrove has adapted the program around Bledsoe’s goals for the Western program, matching workouts and intensity around the season’s various stages. “We sat down at the beginning of the season and he said ‘what do we want’,” Bledsoe said. “I said let’s go through the different phases of the season where we’re going to work on strength, where we’re going to work on legs and he did it, he rotated through. As we get ready for the (postseason) we’re going to work on fast twitch stuff, reaction stuff. Things that are going to help them with sports specific swimming stuff and general fitness.” The greatest benefit, however, might be the impact it has on leadership “They know that their group is trusting them to do right by them,” Bledsoe said. “So it helps develop leadership in kids that may not always have the opportunity to be leaders.” Of course, that only serves as a building block. Dry-land workouts can help improve depth and boost times, but the points structure of swimming puts a premium on the performance of top-notch swimmers and winning relays, which requires those elite swimmers.
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As we get ready for (the postseason) We're going to work on fast twitch stuff, reacton stuff. -- Bledsoe
Western has had a steady stream of big-time talent over the last few years, headlined by current Virginia Tech swimmer Natalie Cronk on the girls side and UNC-Wilmington swimmer Alex Rayle on the boys side. Both were nearly guaranteed double individual winners every time the Warriors entered the pool until the state meet came around. Junior Remedy Rule has clearly proven to be one of those guaranteed double winners, as she racked up three individual state titles during her freshman and sophomore years. Rule has been making her mark nationally in the last few months too. The Warriors’ junior star went to the U.S. Winter Nationals in early December and placed fifth in the 200-yard butterfly. That’s fifth in the nation. Not Rule’s age group, but the nation.
Brazil Rule has become one of the area’s best prep swimmers in less than two years of competition.
Against top notch collegiate swimmers on one of the biggest stages in her career, Rule swam a blazing 1:56.50 in the 200-fly. “Most of the big meets I’ve been to before I’ve been very nervous so I haven’t swam my best,” Rule said. “So going into it, I knew it was going to be difficult to control my nerves. But just going out and racing and getting best times was really a confidence booster. Not just because it was a best time but because it was against people I’m going to race in the future.” Rule may be the headliner, but she’s far from the only attraction for the three-time defending state champions. Her sister Brazil Rule is an excellent freestyle and butterfly swimmer and the addition of former Charlottesville swimmer Storrs Lamb to the lineup this year gives the Warriors another top-notch freestyle standout. There is also a lot of depth with Lexi Campbell, Brynn Acker and Madison Tegen among others. The recipe is a little different for the boys this year where Danny O’Dea, a strong freestyle/backstroke standout, is the lone year-round swimmer on the squad. To win meets, the Warriors’ boys have to pull off a little bit of wizardry and lean on their depth. In the Ben Hair meet, swims from athletes like Matt and Zach Mendell, Meade Cogan, Kyle Benson, A.J. Donovan and Spencer Elliott didn’t win events but they scored critical points for the Warriors. The arrival of the winter bubble over the Crozet Park’s pool has also helped Western get non-year round swimmers involved because there is less travel time involved than when
the Warriors had to head into Charlottesville to practice at Fairview. Another key part of the Warriors’ success is the dive portion of the team, an oft-ignored segment of the competition by many programs. The Warriors always find divers, who can pick up critical points as many teams don’t actively seek out and develop divers. “We showed last year that it’s swimming and diving and our divers stepped up,” Bledsoe said after the divers led Western girls to a win in the Ben Hair meet. “ It was the same way at states last year.” Last year, it was Katie Shepherd’s efforts in the dive for the girls who helped lift Western to another state title. This year, Bobby Surina is scoring big points for the boys while LeAnn Tarleton, Alexandra Brown and Charlotte Norris are giving the girls a big boost. That’s what it takes to win titles year in and year out. That’s what it takes to stay consistent in a sport that can be so capricious. You have to focus on the smallest details and the process itself. The time drops and the points and the victories come next. Western has proven that. They’ve proven that even in a sport as fickle as swimming, a strong program can put together sustained success. It’s a curious challenge, but it’s proven to be an awfully rewarding one for the Warriors. ✖ www.scrimmageplay.com :: 18
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Game Time Charlottesville 55, W. Albemarle 46 By Ryan Yemen
Charlottesville’s Leon Straus had 26 points in a crucial matchup with Western. (Ashley Thornton)
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Charlottesville needed something, and quick. After a reasonable start to the first, the Black Knights saw Western Albemarle light it up from beyond the arc to take a good lead into the second quarter and stretch it out into double digits shortly after that. While the first battle between these two needed overtime, until Caleb Gage gave his team a jolt at the end of the second and the beginning of the third, that looked unlikely. But behind a 15-0 run to close the second and start the third, the Black Knights exploded in front of their home crowd. And then when his team had a healthy lead, Leon Straus went off to put an exclamation point on the 55-46 Charlottesville victory. “I thought we did a much better job of being physical in the second half, just boxing out and contesting their shots,” said Black Knights coach Mitch Minor. “I’m really proud of the way we played our defense for the whole second half.” The win launches Charlottesville a game ahead of Western in the Jefferson District standings. It was also something that Gage and his teammates had been waiting for for quite some time. “I was thinking the whole time, ‘man, we can’t lose to them again, we’ve lost four straight,’” Gage said. “We just couldn’t lose again.” For their part, the Warriors had a great start, with Jake Maynard and Eli Sumpter each knocking down a pair of threes to put the visitors up 18-10. Western seemed in control with the pace of the game going surprisingly slow as both teams fought through the bonus, but everything changed after the small CHS run to close the second, and then for sure after the break. “I was proud of the way we played to start
the first half, this is a tough environment to play in,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “I have no idea what happened in the beginning of that third quarter though. We just stopped playing. I have no idea why, but our body language completely changed and we were still ahead. I had to call a timeout there to remind them that.” A 5-0 run on a layup, steal and 3-point play all from Gage brought the gym to life and when Kendall Dennis gave Charlottesville it’s first lead since the opening moments of the first quarter, there was no looking back. Western’s presence inside was still strong on the glass, but put backs and easy buckets underneath all but dried up. The Warriors’ 3-point shooting cooled down, and on the other side the Black Knights starting make things happen with their vaunted transition game fueled by it’s press. Chase Stokes ended the Western drought in the third with a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to one, but there would be no lead change as the fourth quarter belonged to Straus. “First we had to get physical with their big men and offer help on defense,” Straus said. “And out of that came the offense.” With 11 of his game high 26 points coming in the fourth, a pair of dunks from Straus, one with two minutes to play and the other with just seconds left on the clock put Western too far out of reach to try and foul its way back into the contest. The Black Knights held a three and four possession lead for the bulk of the fourth quarter and were able to put the game away cleanly. Finishing behind Straus in scoring was Gage who added 13. For Western, Maynard had a team best 11 points while Stokes and Sumpter added nine and seven respectively. ✖
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Overtime
Fresh blood
Two Buckingham freshmen are off and running
W
hen it happens in the girls game, it makes all the difference. We’ve seen it in years past whether it was Chandler Gentry at Madison County in the ’10-11 season or K.K. Barbour at Albemarle the following year — it’s not insane for a freshman to lead the way. However, rarely do a pair of freshman come along and give a program a complete facelift. In the ’11-’12 season Monticello watched that situation unfold with a Molly Shephard and Megan Comer leading the way to the program’s first ever Jefferson District tournament championship. The Mustangs have won two straight, are the heavy favorites to win a third, and undoubtedly will be seen as the front runners again next year. And so for that very reason Buckingham County should be very excited about what it has right now. By the time the calender rolled over to 2014, it was already clear that Micaila Coleman and Shae Hurt were no longer freshmen in the traditional sense. Sure this is still their first year playing, but the experience they picked up and the resolve they showed in making the jump from junior varisty to varsity has turned them into young stalwarts. On a team with senior leader Robyn Davis and strong scoring options in junior Tamira Haskins and sophomore Tamara Lewis, Hurt and Coleman have carved out their own niches and become wildly productive. As such, the Knights had a great start to the year and with just one loss in the James River District (a 65-61 nail-biter on the road to Amelia), sit in position to put together their best postseason run since they made the state final four in ’09-’10. What Micaila Coleman has done in just two brief months is nothing short of incredible. There aren’t too many reliable post players at the Division 2 level, much less in their first year of play. Coleman has a track and field background and it shows on the court on both ends as she leads the Knights in both points per game at 13.5 and rebounds 11.6. Those are elite numbers but she also chips in 4.0 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. She’s doing all that against girls that are significantly her senior. This baptism by fire in the paint is awfully reminiscent of what both Shephard and Barbour went through two years ago. Those two have developed into arguably the area’s most well-rounded and effective post players in the last five years. With half a season and the playoffs to go, Coleman’s well on pace and eager to follow in those steps and refine her game. “I’ve grown up a lot with my teammates and this is just a great team,” Coleman said. “My job right now is to get the job done in the paint and go after rebounds. It’s a much faster game than in JV, and the girls are stronger too, but it’s been fun.” And then there’s Hurt. Her addition has been widely felt too. With Hurt’s ability to bring the ball up, the Knights have significantly more depth in the backcourt. Now Haskins doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting, especially when her team gets pressed. On top of that, it’s allowed Buckingham’s offense to open up with players having to worry less and less about creating shots off the dribble because the Knights guards are so much more effective at moving the ball around and finding Coleman and Davis. Together the two are averaging 6.1 assists per game with Haskins leading the way with 3.3 and Hurt not far behind at 2.8. Hurt is fourth in scoring, but not by much either as she averages 10.1 per game. On the other side of the ball, and more importantly overall, Hurt’s speed and nose for
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“It’s how long the games are, how much effort you have to put into it.” the ball have made her one of the team’s best defensive players too. Hurt leads Buckingham in steals with 5.0 steals per game. That’s been a huge boost to the Knights’ transition game and been a big reason why this team has routed so many of it’s opponents so far — this team can play fast. “The thing I’ve learned most here now is how to play better defense,” Hurt said. “We’re learning how to play as a team and I’m learning how to run plays. It’s been a big difference than playing JV. It’s not just the speed, it’s how long the games are and how much effort you have to put into it.” So as Buckingham heads into the home stretch of its regular season schedule, its freshman duo is in the process of learning a valuable lesson. Talent can get the job done early on, but when talent meets hard work big things happen. It looks like Dillwyn has something brewing, and it’s just in its first act. ✖
Ryan Yemen,
CRE ATIVE EDITOR
back talk »
Which underclassmen are playing beyond their age? Contact Ryan at: ryan@scrimmageplay.com
Success stories begin here.
Success Story: Kevin Laue Kevin Laue’s journey is the stuff movies are made of — quite literally. Born with just one arm, Laue became one of the top stories in the country back in 2007 when Sports Illustrated label him as “the most exciting player in the basketball.” However, in a both a sad and ironic twist, a broken leg dashed his recruiting prospects as a high school senior. So Laue did what so many in the country do, they come to Fork Union. In 2008 the San Jose, California native switched coasts and suited up for legendary coach Fletcher Arrit. Laue’s efforts as a post graduate player did not go unnoticed. His goal the entire time was to draw interest from Division 1 collegiate programs. After intially garnering Division 3 offers, Laue worked his way to a change to realize him dream and play at the highest level. When Laue was offered a scholarship to play for Manhattan College, he
became the first player ever with one arm to acquire a Division 1 offer. In 59 games over three years with the Jaspers, Laue was able to contribute off the bench, playing his best as a sophomore. During his travels from a high school standout in California to a promising recruit at Fork Union and finally a Division 1 athlete at Manhattan, a film crew followed Laue around, chronicling his journey. This fall Franklin Martin, the man who documented Laue’s story, released the film “Long Shot: The Kevin Laue Story.” New York Times critic Daniel Gold called the film “a memorable account of an inspiring struggle to finish on top.” NBA legend Bill Walton said, “Kevin’s remarkable and perfectly told story will make you laugh, cry and think.” It’s an amazing tale and one that took a big step here at Fork Union.
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