The James River boys will jump from the frying pan into the fire tonight when they travel to Radford to take on a red hot Bobcat team in basketball. Radford comes into the week with a 14-2 record and atop the Three Rivers District basketball standings.
River is 11-8 after dropping district games to Glenvar and Carroll County last week. The Knights will try to snap a three-game losing streak at Radford tonight.
Last week at Glenvar the Knights had 17 turnovers in a 53-48 loss to the Highlanders. This one was close all the way before the Highlanders finished strong.
“Glenvar was a tough game as expected,” said River coach Ethan Humphries. “We knew we had to play well to win and unfortunately we didn’t play well enough. Our guys fought, but we know we have a slim margin of error and we had too many mistakes to beat a tough team like them. If we play our cards right we’ll see them again in the playoffs.”
Ryan Steger led River with 22 points and Sam Bell had 15 points and six rebounds.
Last Friday the Knights played at Carroll County on “Frank Beamer Night” and dropped an 80-54 decision to a hot shooting Cavalier team. Steger had 17 points, Bell had 16 and George Toliver had nine points and seven rebounds.
Photos by Brian Hoffman
“Carroll had a fun night against us,” said Humphries. “Our defense wasn’t up to par all game and as coaches we’ll emphasize that end of the floor more going forward. At one point Carroll was 10 for18 from the three-point line.”
The Knights trailed by just four at the half and eight after three quarters, so the game was closer than the final score indicates.
After tonight’s game at Radford the Knights will be back home to host Alleghany on Friday. Next Monday is “Senior Night” and that will conclude the regular season portion of the schedule.