Weather permitting, the Lord Botetourt girls are looking to move up in the Blue Ridge District basketball standings when they host Staunton River Friday night. The Eagles are in second place in the BRD with one district loss and LB is close behind at 3-2.
William Fleming leads the district, winning all five BRD games to date. Botetourt picked up a big district win at Northside last week, running away from the Vikings for a 75-35 final.
“Great team effort,” said LB coach Renee Favaro. “We have struggled from the free-throw line this season but went 15-for-16 from the line in this one, which was huge for us.”
Maggie Hoover led LB with a career-high 29 points and 12 rebounds while Natalee Bowling added 20 points and 11 boards. Addison Naff stuffed the stat sheet with nine points, seven assists and seven steals. Freshman Jadyn Deaner also had a solid outing with eight points.
A night later, on Jan. 21, the Cavaliers hosted last year’s Class 4 state runner-up when the Salem Spartans came to town. Salem has just one loss this season but the Cavaliers gave them all they could handle, leading 18-16 at the half before falling 42-31 in a low-scoring affair.
Photos by Regina Devinney
“Defensively, we followed the game plan and really tried to just focus on containing them,” said Favaro. “Offensively, we just struggled to put the ball in the basket, but we cut our turnovers in half from our first outing against them.
“We have to be better down the stretch at not letting one mistake lead to multiple in a row. We are a young group, and it shows in those moments against veteran teams like Salem. It is also hard to win games only scoring 31 points.”
The Cavaliers had a Tuesday game at Franklin County postponed, and tonight they’re scheduled to play at Liberty High, weather permitting.
