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Friday, Jan. 12 – Struggling to keep the momentum going after a strong first half, the Rockbridge County High School boys basketball team suffered a 62-44 home loss to new Valley District rival William Monroe on Friday in Lexington.
The Wildcats (2-12 overall, 2-4 district), were coming off a 61-55 win, their first road victory of the season, at Turner Ashby on Wednesday.
Against William Monroe (10-5, 2-4), the Wildcats weren’t able to contain junior guard Brady Lam, who led all scorers with 35 points, sinking five 3-pointers. Lam scored 20 points in the first half. Two days earlier, Lam had scored his 1,000th point in the Dragons’ 55-36 win over Harrisonburg.
Friday’s game was close early on, with WM leading 11-10 midway through the first quarter, but the Dragons then went on a 9-0 run to go up 20-10, with Lam making two 3-pointers during that stretch.
WM took a 22-14 lead in the second quarter, but the Wildcats cut it to 22-19 after a 3-pointer from Zane Ramsey and a jump shot from Luke Eversole. The Dragons held a small lead for the rest of the quarter and took a 29-25 lead into halftime.
Early in the second half, the Dragons built up a 10-point lead after Parker Hildebrand hit back-to-back 3-pointers to put the visitors up 35-25. WM continued to shoot well and stretched its lead to 53-35 by the end of the quarter.
Eversole hit a 3-pointer at the start of the fourth quarter, but Hildebrand responded with two triples, and the Dragons led comfortably the rest of the way.
For the game, WM was on fire from beyond the arc, making 12 3-pointers, while the Wildcats hit six treys.
Henry Lambert and Sam Ballsteadt led RC with 11 points each, with Ballstaedt making three 3-pointers. Milo Mulitalo added eight points, Eversole chipped in seven points, and Ramsey and Noah Hamm each made a 3-pointer.
Other than Lam, the Dragons’ leading scorers were Hildebrandt with 16 points, including five 3-pointers, and Timmy Guertin with 10 points.
RC committed 10 turnovers, while WM had eight.
The Wildcats will return to action on Saturday when they face local rival Parry McCluer in Buena Vista at 5:30 p.m., with varsity action scheduled for 5:30 p.m. The day will start with the junior varsity girls’ game at 1 p.m., followed by the JV boys’ game at 2:30 p.m., varsity girls’ game at 4 p.m., and then the varsity boys’ game. When the RC and PM boys met on Dec. 27 in Lexington, the Fighting Blues won 79-75.
For the full stories on this week’s action, with photos from Saturday’s games, please see our Jan. 17 newspaper.
