The James River boys basketball team will continue a busy early season schedule with a home game against Bath County tonight, December 6. It will be the fifth game for the Knights in eight days.
River opened the season last Wednesday with a 50-15 loss to Parry McCluer in Buena Vista. Trey Taylor and Ryder Ward had five points each to lead River, who trailed just 11-8 after the first quarter before the Blues pulled away.
Last weekend, River participated in the Riverheads Invitational at Riverheads High School in Staunton, splitting two games. The Knights played Rappahannock County on Friday and lost 53-39. Taylor had 14 points, all in the first half, as River jumped to a 26-22 lead at intermission. Rappahannock then came out in the third quarter with a variation of a diamond-and-one on Trey and outscored the Knights 31-17 in the second half.
On Saturday, River played Bath County and won a close one, 57-55. Taylor had 17 points, Ben Lawson had 14 points and five rebounds and Matthew Alderson had a dozen points, nine boards and four assists. Josiah Clark hit the game-winning basket off an assist by Taylor with 1.3 seconds on the clock.
“With a lot of games early on we are finding out a lot about ourselves,” said coach Ethan Humphries. “We aren’t a very good team right now as we are turning it over almost as much as we shoot with a lot of those turnovers being unforced. Until we cut our turnovers down by 50 percent the scoreboard and the win-loss column means next to nothing. Our guys are showing the maturity needed for improvement which is the biggest sign of competing. They are taking hard coaching and showing up to work every day at practice. It’s a learning process that comes with some bumps in the road. We are still figuring out how to play varsity basketball.”
The Knights were scheduled to host Parry McCluer in a rematch on Tuesday of this week and this Friday Riverheads comes to Springwood for River’s third home game of the week. Next Monday the homestand continues as River plays host to Waynesboro.
