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Senior Brandon Mays scored a career-high 31 points, sinking six 3-pointers, to lead the Rockbridge County High School boys basketball team to an 82-62 home win over Harrisonburg in a Valley District opener on Friday night in Lexington.
Achieving their highest-scoring point total of the season, the Wildcats won their fourth consecutive game, and they would win their fifth straight game by defeating Parry McCluer 59-52 on Saturday in Buena Vista. RC ended the week at 5-7.
Mays scored 15 points in the first half and added 16 points in the second half. His previous career high was 22 points in a 57-53 home win over Salem a week earlier.
The Wildcats jumped out to a 22-12 lead after the first quarter, but the Blue Streaks (0-10) outscored RC 23-19 in the second quarter to cut the lead to 41-35 by halftime. RC outscored Harrisonburg 18-8 in the third quarter to extend its lead to 59-43, and the Wildcats stayed comfortably ahead for the rest of the game.
Reviewing his team’s performance, RC head coach Rob Winfield said, “You take away the second quarter, I’m extremely pleased with it.”
Milo Mulitalo scored 17 points for the Wildcats, while Henry Lambert added 10 points, making three 3-pointers. Also contributing to the Wildcats’ scoring were Andreas Poindexter with eight points, Lincoln Hundley with seven, Matthew Burkhart with six, and Jackson White with a 3-pointer just before the game ended. The Wildcats made 11 triples while holding Harrisonburg to three 3-pointers.
Jadon Burgess led Harrisonburg with 18 points, sinking three 3-pointers, as Lambert played strong defense to keep Burgess from taking over the game, holding him to three points in the second half. “Henry, we’ve given him some tough defensive assignments,” said Winfield of Lambert. “You’ve got to play tough defense if you guard [Burgess], who I know got his, but I think Henry made it hard on him.”
“A guy that shoots as well as [Lambert] does, that can score like he does, when you make him play defense, that sacrifices some offense, but he’s taken on that challenge, which is good. It allowed Brandon [Mays] freedom to score.”
Tiberius Fields scored 17 points for the Blue Streaks, while Kayden Hottle-Madden added nine points, and Latham Fields chipped in eight.
Winfield praised the play of his point guards, Burkhart and Poindexter. He said they “both pushed the pace, and I think Andreas is getting in the flow of it. I think he’s become Andreas the basketball player after Andreas the football player.”
The Wildcats are scheduled to play at Stuarts Draft today, Wednesday, before returning to Valley District action at home on Friday again at Spotswood and playing host to district rival Turner Ashby on Tuesday. All three nights will start with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m.
