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The Rockbridge County High School boys basketball team had its six-game winning streak snapped last week, suffering a 70-50 home loss to Valley District rival Spotswood on Friday night in Lexington.
The Wildcats (6-8 overall, 1-1 district), who were coming off a 68-61 nondistrict road win over Stuarts Draft last Wednesday, struggled against Spotswood’s efficient offense and defensive press. The Trailblazers (12-2, 2-0), have either won or shared the Valley District title each season for the last 10 years.
Spotswood jumped out to a 16-7 lead before the Wildcats cut it to 19-13 by the end of the first quarter. The Blazers stretched lead to 34-19 by halftime, with Camryn Pacheco scoring 10 of his game-high 18 p oints i n t he fi rst h alf t o l ead t he Blazers.
The Blazers led by 16 points in the third quarter before RC’s Lincoln Hundley scored the next eight points, hitting a jump shot from the side and two 3-pointers, to cut Spotswood’s lead to 46-38. Spotswood’s Ja’corey Shelton responded with a 3-pointer to give the visitors a 49-38 lead at the end of the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Spotswood remained aggressive, going up by 20 and staying comfortably ahead for the rest of the way, as both teams put in their reserves in the final minutes of the game.
RC was playing without its head coach, Rob Winfield, who was out sick, so RC athletic director Adam Haynes was the acting coach. Haynes, who was the head boys basketball coach for Bassett High School for six years before becoming RC’s athletic director in the summer of 2021, has been helping Winfield as an assistant coach since mid-December. Stepping in to assist Haynes on Friday was Darrell Plogger, who was RC’s head coach for 10 years before stepping down two years ago.
Praising Spotswood, Haynes said, “They were as advertised on film. They’re a really good team. They’re very well coached. They’re very fundamentally sound. They do a lot of things right. [On] offense, they play fast and take good shots in transition, but when they don’t have a good shot, they do a good job of pulling out and running the offense until they get one that they like. From an offensive discipline standpoint, I think they do a really good job.”
Defensively, Haynes said the Blazers “keep coming at you. They were in constant attack, and that was the one thing that I was worried about with our guys because they hadn’t seen that intensity from an opponent this year. I thought, if we could handle their pressure, we’d have a chance to make it competitive, but if we didn’t handle their pressure, I knew that it’d be a long night.”
Other than Pacheco, Spotswood’s leading scorers were Tyler Sprague with 16 points, Rayne Dean with 11 and Jackson Li with nine.
Henry Lambert led RC with 11 points and nine rebounds, sinking three 3-pointers, while Hundley added 10 points and three rebounds, and Brandon Mays had 10 points and six boards. Milo Mulitalo scored six points and grabbed four rebounds, Andreas Poindexter added five points, and Keaton Owsley contributed four points and two blocks. RC and Spotswood each made six 3-pointers.
On the defensive side, Matthew Burkhart led RC with two steals.
RC struggled to take care of the ball, committing 14 turnovers, while Spotswood had seven turnovers.
Despite the loss, Haynes emphasized to his players that they should not be discouraged, especially after winning six straight games to bounce back from an 0-7 start to the season.
“We’ve been playing well for the last two or three weeks,” said Haynes. “Before the game, I told them, no matter what happens tonight, this game’s not gonna define us or define our season. This is just a measuring stick.”
Haynes also told his team, “This will show us where we are, and Spotswood will expose some things and show us where we need to get to and what we need to work on.”
RC 68, SD 61
The Wildcats earned a 68-61 road win over Stuarts Draft last Wednesday.
RC led 17-13 at the end of the first quarter and stretched its lead to 40-25 by halftime. The Wildcats stayed ahead by double digits for almost the entire second half, but the Cougars trimmed the lead to 10 points in the fourth quarter and hit a 3-pointer just before the final buzzer sounded.
Owsley led RC with 17 points, going 9-of-12 from the free throw line, while Mays added 15 points, sinking two 3-pointers. Daronde’ Stores scored 11 points and Burkhart had 10 points. Also contributing to RC’s scoring were Hundley with eight points and Poindexter with seven.
Donovan Jenkins paced Stuarts Draft with 20 points, while Harley Frame added nine points, and Landon Graber chipped in eight points.
The Wildcats were scheduled to play host to Turner Ashby last night and will continue district action at Broadway on Friday before traveling to Harrisonburg on Tuesday. Both nights will start with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m.
