There’s no secret sauce to what Fluvanna County did Monday night — win 74-68 while allowing an opposing scorer, Orange’s Sihle Mthethwa, to score a near school record 51 points — and the Flucos aren’t interested in repeating it again.
“Not something I want to do on a regular basis,” said Fluvanna coach Heath Bralley. “That was not the plan tonight but he played really, really well. He got really hot. But a team beats one person and we did what we needed to do to win.”
The Flucos managed to prevent Mthethwa and the Hornets from snagging the victory with an impressive effort from Kobe Edmonds who notched 20 points and 10 assists for a double double and 12 points and nine boards from Xavier Copeland. At one point in the second half, Edmonds, who played with Copeland on the travel circuit when they were younger, told Copeland during an inbounds to set a screen and that he was going to go to work. They immediately did, with Edmonds finding Copeland on the roll shortly before Edmonds connected on another jumper.
“We’ve been doing this since we were little, he’s like a brother to me,” Copeland said. “I know his skills, he knows my skill, we just come together and do our thing.”
It’s a mutually beneficial relationship for the Flucos who have some strong pieces coming together.
“With him coming here, it feels great because we’re adding another unselfish guy to play with,” Edmonds said. “He’s going to get down and do the dirty work too.”
Orange’s Sihle Mthethwa
The Flucos needed every bit of that chemistry and Copeland’s energy and effort because Mthethwa was putting on an absolute show on the other end while posting 51 points, just three points off what’s believed to be the school record. According to former Orange athletic director Marc Cole, there were no records kept before he became athletic director in 1988 but Bradley Starks scored 54 points against St. Anne’s-Belfield once during his career from 2004-2007.
Cramps took Mthethwa — who also crossed the 1,000-point mark for his career in the loss — out of the lineup for about two minutes in the fourth quarter, but otherwise he was essentially the Hornets’ entire offense, spearheading an effort that came after the Hornets found out their season was being paused by a school board decision due to rising COVID numbers just minutes before the opening whistle.
“Clay was excellent tonight and I do like the way we battled at the end,” said Orange coach Adam Utz. “We got down 11 with three and a half, four minutes and cut it to four. I’m proud of our guys effort and our fight. I told the guys that if the cliche has ever been true, play every day like your last, it’s now. I think we’ll pick back up — I’m praying we will — but when you find that out before the game all you can do is play hard.”
Mthethwa got it done off the drive, from outside (he hit six threes) and at the line (17-for-24 at the charity stripe).
“The first half was rough, I couldn’t hit anything, but in the second half my teammates started to find me and I’m glad they trusted my shot to go in and I just started feeling good,” Mthethwa said. “I loved our defense tonight, I thought we were tenacious everywhere.”
But during a particularly potent stretch in the second half when Mthethwa simply caught fire, Edmonds had a lot of the answers on the other end, keeping the Hornets from overtaking the Flucos with a big assist or a bucket.
Throw in 14 points from Maurice D’Alessandro who had a huge fourth quarter with 11 points including a critical 3-pointer after dealing with foul trouble in the early stages of the game as well as 10 points from John Rittenhouse and it was enough to move the Flucos to 3-0 despite the fact that Copeland was adamant that the defensive effort was unacceptable.
“We’ve got to do better on defense, we’ve got to come back (and work) tomorrow and try to do better,” Copeland said.
The Flucos are slated to host Staunton Thursday night while Orange will pause its season until January 15 pending further developments from the school board. The two programs were scheduled for a rematch Friday night.
