The James River girls will have a rematch with Class 3 Christiansburg on the road tonight after dropping their season opener to the Blue Demons in Springwood last week. The Knights split their first two games to open the season.
Last week at home the Knights fell to the visiting Demons, 60-41. Christiansburg led 34-25 at the half and pulled away after intermission.
“Christiansburg is a solid team,” said River coach Ryan Firebaugh. “They have a lot of weapons, we just couldn’t get a stop. We would get them into situations where they would turn the ball over and we would go down and capitalize on that turnover. Then they would come back and get a bucket. It was a very even game, we just got to eliminate our mistakes and we will be fine.”
Caitlin Canada had a double-double to lead River with 13 points and a dozen rebounds. Kelsi Maydian had 13 points with a couple three-pointers and Jalen Thompson had five points and eight rebounds.
On Thursday, River bounced back with an exciting 59-54 win over Bassett in double overtime, also in Springwood.
“I was very proud of my girls,” said Firebaugh. “They didn’t give up.”
Photos by Leigh Downey
River was down by six with 1:30 left in regulation and battled back to get it within two points with nine seconds left. Firebaugh then took a time out and drew up a play with two options, one for the win and one for the tie. Bassett covered the option for the win, but Hontesty Liming hit the two-point bucket to send the game into overtime.
Both teams scored five points in the first overtime period to continue the game, as Audrey Benson hit the tying bucket. In the second overtime River scored five and held the Bengals to a single point to pull out the win.
“In the second overtime, we sealed the game at the foul line,” said Firebaugh. “Keira Crawford came up big for us at that charity stripe. These girls never gave up, they believed in each other the whole game and played well! These girls have tremendous grit and determination.”
Canada had a big game with 20 points, 12 rebounds and five steals. Thompson had a dozen points and 13 rebound to go with four steals. Benson and Maydian had eight points each. Liming had seven rebounds and four steals.
On Friday the Knights were in Martinsville where they won their second in a row, 61-44. Now 2-1, the girls will return the trip to Bassett on Friday after tonight’s game at Christiansburg, and next Monday they go to Waynesboro.
