Ready or not, the Lord Botetourt boys’ basketball team is coming to Springwood Friday to play James River.
The county rivals were scheduled to play in Daleville last week but that game was postponed until February 3 with the Lord Botetourt football team advancing to state play. In fact, the Cavaliers had games with Glenvar and Cave Spring postponed as well.
The football team won again last Saturday and will play in the state championship this weekend, but it’s “go time” for the basketball team. The Cavaliers opened with what they had on Monday and things went well as LB picked up a 68-54 win over Alleghany in Daleville. It was the first varsity win for new LB head coach Andrew Hart.
“We were very pleased with our effort and energy,” said Hart. “We had some young guys step up after we got in some foul trouble. Dylan Salvi and Conner Tilley played great in their first varsity game as sophomores and we had a lot of different players impact the game in significant ways so we were very pleased with our team’s performance.”
Tilley led the team with 16 points while Salvi had a dozen. Logan Bramblett had nine, Luke Hale and Owen Prince had eight each and Tanner Selkirk chipped in with seven points and seven rebounds. Matthew Oliver led the Cavs with eight boards.
Meanwhile, James River had played just one game as well, falling at Parry McCluer in their season opener last week, 49-40. The Knights fell behind early, trailing 17-8 after one quarter and 28-18 at the half before winning the second half, 22-21.
“We got off to a slow start,” said coach Mike Goad. “I think it was a little of that beginning of the year blues.”
River got as close as five in the second half but couldn’t catch up. The Knights were outrebounded 33-15 and shot just four for 17 from the three-point line. Sophomore Patrick Clevenger led the scoring with 15 points and freshman Ryan Steger had 10. Isiah Moran had seven.
The Knights are back in action tonight as Parry McCluer returns the trip. LB will host Salem on Thursday night before heading to Springwood for the intra-county game on Friday night.