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Despite showing progress in its second week of action, the Rockbridge County High School boys basketball team lost all three games last week, suffering a home loss to Fort Defiance and road setbacks to Salem and Alleghany. Entering Valley District action this week, the Wildcats are 0-4.
The Wildcats started their busy week of three games in four days with a 67-60 road loss to Salem.
The game was close the whole way, with Salem (1-1) leading 19-12 after the first quarter and taking a 32-24 lead into halftime. RC cut into the lead in the second half, but the Spartans finished strong to seal the win.
Henry Lambert led the Wildcats with 26 points, making four 3-pointers, while Milo Mulitalo added 20 points. Chipping in four points each for the Wildcats were Ian Johnson, Noah Hamm and Sam Ballstaedt.
Leading Salem was Lucas Yerton with 13 points, while Marvin Fields added nine points, and Grant Clemens and Kam Brown each chipped in eight.
FD 91, RC 71
Although they led for much of the first half, the Wildcats couldn’t stop a sharpshooting Fort Defiance team and suffered a 91-71 home loss last Wednesday in Lexington.
The first half of the game was a back-and-forth affair, with the Wildcats jumping out to a 5-0 lead before the Indians came back to take an 18-12 lead. Fort, which hit 18 3-pointers in the game, got its high scoring by using “The Grinnell System,” a strategy intended to produce a fast-paced style of play, with frequent 3-pointers, mass substitutions every 90 seconds and high scores.
It was a style somewhat familiar to RC fans, as Fort head coach Mike Gale had coached the Wildcats in the brief 2020-21 season, delayed and condensed to two weeks due to COVID-19. “It’s tough to deal with,” said RC head coach Rob Winfield.
RC responded to Fort’s run by going on a 13-2 run to end the first quarter with a 25-20 lead. The Wildcats built their lead to 13 points in the third quarter and took a 49-44 lead into halftime. Leading the Wildcats with 14 of his team-high 17 points was Sam Ballstaedt, who hit four of his five 3-pointers in the first half.
The Indians started the second half by hitting three 3-pointers to go on a 9-0 run and take a 53-49 lead. RC would get the lead back later in the third quarter before Fort sank a triple to take a 60-58 lead into the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats went cold in the fourth quarter, and the Indians capitalized on RC turnovers to build their lead to double digits. Also hurting the Wildcats was FD’s Sam Garber, who scored 13 of his game-high 30 points in the fourth quarter. Garber punished the Wildcats with seven 3-pointers in the game. At the end of the night, Fort hit free throws to extend the lead to 20 points.
Reviewing the game and highlighting his team’s struggles in the second half, Winfield said, “You try to take care of the ball. You try to be conservative. We just got too cautious in the second half, and that’s on me. I didn’t do a good job of encouraging the attacking. I tried to peel us back a little bit. Against them, you’ve got to accept the turnovers that are naturally gonna happen, but when you just try to slow it down too much, you just create more turnovers, and I didn’t do a good job helping them through that.”
RC committed 17 turnovers in the game, while Fort had 14. Other than Ballstaedt, RC’s leading scorers were Johnson with 14 points, Mulitalo with 13 and Ethen Camden with 11. Lambert and Hamm chipped in six points each. The Wildcats made seven 3-pointers. Mulitalo was a monster on the boards, leading the Wildcats with 17 rebounds, while Johnson pulled down nine rebounds, Lambert grabbed four boards and Luke Eversole grabbed three.
Defensively, Hamm, Eversole and Lambert each grabbed two steals, and Lambert and Mulitalo each had a block.
Winfield praised the Wildcats’ leaders, Lambert and Mulitalo, for doing their best to carry the team two nights in a row. “They battled,” he said. “They played hard, but there’s only so much juice in the tank. Maybe I should’ve done a better job of rotating and finding minutes here and there.”
Aside from Garber, the leading scorers for Fort, which ended the week at 1-3, were Gio Armendariz Cruz with 12 points, Jasigh Ransome with 10, and Austin Metz with seven.
AHS 61, RC 54
The Wildcats showed improvement against Alleghany, coming up short 61-54 on Friday in Covington.
When the teams met in the season opener on Nov. 28 in Lexington, Alleghany won 67-43.
In the rematch, the Cougars (2-1) jumped out to a 20-7 lead after the first quarter, with Lambert scoring all seven RC points, but the Wildcats responded by outscoring them 19-9 in the second quarter to cut the lead to 29-26 by halftime.
“It was a good game,” said Winfield. “It was back and forth after that first quarter.”
Alleghany led 46-38 after the third quarter and maintained a small lead for the rest of the game. “They’re a talented team,” said Winfield.
Lambert led the Wildcats, scoring 18 of his 29 points in the first half and sinking six 3-pointers in the game, five in the first half. Eversole added nine points for RC, Zane had six points, and Mulitalo chipped in five points and grabbed four rebounds. Winfield said it was a big game for several of his first-year varsity players: Eversole, Hamm and Ramsey.
Leading Alleghany with 10 points was Purcel Turner, while Xzavier Hayslett, Eli Entsminger and Kole Caldwell each added eight points. Chase DePriest chipped in six points.
Reviewing the busy schedule, Winfield said, “It was a long week for us, being in three games.”
The Wildcats were scheduled to play at Broadway last night and will continue district action at home against East Rockingham on Friday before playing at Harrisonburg on Tuesday. Both nights will start with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m.
ABOVE, RC junior forward Zane Ramsey looks for a teammate to pass to during the Wildcats’ home loss to Fort Defiance. AT LEFT, Wildcat senior center Milo Mulitalo wins the jump ball at the start of the game. Mulitalo led RC with 17 rebounds, scored 13 points, and blocked a shot. BELOW, RC junior point guard Noah Hamm dribbles the ball down the court while a pair of Fort Defiance players guard him. Hamm scored six points and grabbed two steals. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photos)
