Just how close the VISAA quartefinal game between Fork Union and hosting Miller was probably lost among most in attendence after Mychal Parker, Brice Kofane and Hippolyte Tsafack orchaestrated a fourth quarter dunking exhibition. But for the first 20 minutes, the Blue Devils and Mavericks had themselves a battle. However, Miller, behind its experience seniors, pulled away at the end of the third quarter before putting on a show for their fans in the final minutes of in a 68-52 victory over FUMA.
“I wish could take credit for any of that,” said Miller coach Scott Willard of the five consecutive fast break dunks his team put together in the final frame. “Our bigs ran the pipe today like their life depended on it and we just fed them the ball.”
After closing the first quarter on an 11-3 run, Miller was up by nine points and looked comfortable on both ends of the court. But the second quarter belonged to Fork Union as Mark Shuman, Joe Branch, Donatas Zuzevicius and Xavier Holland started to win the battle of the boards underneath the basket. The Blue Devils were able to cut the lead to just one point before the half, and wound up jumping infront of the Mavericks by three points in the opening minutes of the third quarter.
“Coming into the game we just wanted to control the tempo of the game as much as we could,” said Blue Devils coach Matthew Donahue. “We wanted to do that by boxing out and getting back on defense as much as we could, and of course, controlling the ball when we had it. Once we settled down we were okay.”
The Fork Union lead didn’t last long though. Parker exploded offensively starting in the middle of the third quarter, by finishing his shots at the rim, drawing fouls in the process and knocking down his free throws to put Miller back out in front by 10 points.
Then in the fourth quarter, Miller guards De’Andre Corbin and Preston Terrell helped string together the run of fast breaks with Parker’s alley-oop, a pass he caught two feet above of the hoop and brought back down with authority, drawing the biggest ovation from the crowd, and two-handed flush shortly there after by Tsafack coming in at a close second.
“We’ve been playing together on this team for such a long time now,” Tsafack said. “We know how to go out there to make plays.”
From the stands there was a striking contrast between the size of Fork Union’s bench and Miller’s. While the Blue Devils had no shortage of players to shuffle in and out of the game, Mavericks coach Scott Willard had just seven players to work with, and his starting five wound up playing nearly every minute of the game.
“I’ll put our seven up against anyone,” Willard said. “They’ve been doing this for three years here. They don’t need to be rested.”
The only thing more impressive than Miller’s conditioning was its ability to stay out of foul trouble, something Willard chalks up to experience.
“Six of my seven guys are seniors and they know the whistles,” Willard said. “They know what’s going to be called and what’s not and they do a great job.”
Tsafack wound up leading all scorers and rebounders. The Memphis bound senior tallied 20 point and hauled in 15 rebounds in his last game at Alumni Gym. Parker finished with 18 points and hit all seven of his free throws. Kofane’s 15 points gave Miller three players in double figures.
For FUMA, Shuman put 10 points, with six of those coming on 3-pointers. Zuzevicius came up with nine points while Branch finished with eight points despite getting his bell rung on an elbow to his eye that cut him and put him on the bench in the third quarter.
With the win, Miller will face rival Blue Ridge on Friday at Virginia State University in the semifinals.
