The balls will be bouncing in Springwood this weekend when the James River girls host the third annual Knights Winter Classic. The tournament for girls includes varsity and jayvee brackets and will be a three-day affair, with games on Friday, Saturday and Monday.
Action begins Friday at 2:30 p.m. with Western Albemarle taking on Jefferson Forest. Staunton River and Alleghany are next at 4:30 p.m., followed by Carlisle against Christiansburg at 6:30 p.m. and the host Knights against Brookville to wrap up a big day at 8 p.m.
Losers’ bracket games will be at noon and 2 p.m. Saturday followed by winners’ bracket games at 4 and 6 p.m. On Monday the championship is at 7:30 p.m. following a third place game at 4 p.m. There will also be seventh and fifth place games at noon and 2 p.m., and the jayvees have a seven-team tournament with River, Brookville, Alleghany, Jefferson Forest, Western Albemarle, Christiansburg and Staunton River junior varsity teams. The jayvee tournament will be held on the same days in the auxiliary gym at James River High.
Admission is $10 and it will be good for all games on a given day. Varsity and jayvee championship teams will receive a trophy and a 10-girl all-tournament team will be announced.
The Knights are undefeated after three games. They won back-to-back games on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, beginning with a 48-39 win over Rockbridge in Springwood. The Knights had balanced scoring with 10 points from Jalen Thompson, Audrey Benson with nine, Siera Davis and Kelsi Maydian with seven each, and Keira Crawford and Samaya Osborne with half a dozen each. Benson had four assists and Osborne had nine rebounds.
“It was a close game until the fourth quarter,” said River coach Donald Eggleston. “We stepped up defensively, which led to easy offensive scoring.”
A night later the girls made up a previous postponed game at Northside and pulled out a 45-44 win. River trailed 34-31 after three quarters but Benson scored 11 of her 16 points in the fourth period to pace the win. Thompson also had 16, Davis had seven points and Crawford had five. Thompson and Osborne led the team in rebounding with eight and seven.
The girls were scheduled to play at Parry McCluer Tuesday of this week but results were too late for publication. After this weekend’s tournament they’re off for Christmas next week, returning Dec. 30 to host Cave Spring.
