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Stay Poised: Albemarle boys pull away from CHS late

Albemarle seniors Carter Wesson, Christian Humes and La’mari Parler have been there before. They’ve been through the Jefferson District road battles where the home student section is absolutely deafening. 

 

They knew the stakes and they knew how to handle the environment and they pulled away in the fourth quarter to pick up a 73-61 win over Charlottesville.

 

“I thought my whole team was really poised,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “They made a great run on us, everything they threw up was going in and the crowd was going crazy but we stayed calm and kept doing what we needed to do.”

 

Those three seniors all contributed in a huge way. Christian Humes hit a pair of big fourth quarter threes as part of his 19-point night while also dishing out four assists and nabbing four steals. Parler shook off an 0-for-5 start and scored eight of his 11 points in the second half and Wesson who had 16 points and seven boards, kept the Patriots on course in the first quarter with three 3-pointers and then provided the hammer dunk as time wound down, putting an exclamation point on the win. 

 

“Whenever he dunks it everybody gets excited, it’s a big boost,” Parler said of Wesson’s dunk.

 

The slam may have taken it to a fever pitch but Albemarle was already pretty fired up by the time Wesson got loose on the break. Down by three going into the fourth quarter, Albemarle turned up the defensive pressure and held Charlottesville to just six points in the fourth quarter while scoring 21 of their own thanks largely to Humes and a 3-pointer from Ben Wesson. 

 

That allowed Albemarle to take advantage of cramping issues that limited the Black Knights’ two leading scorers, Keyshawn Hill and Aidan Yates in the closing minutes of the fourth. 

 

“We had critical guys cramping up at the wrong time right when the game was pretty even,” said Charlottesville coach Mitch Minor. “That really hurt us but it was a good learning experience for us. We’ll get better.”

 

Yates and Hill each finished with 19 with Yates doing his damage beyond the arc with four 3-pointers and Hill going 9-for-9 at the free throw line. Luka Matic also chipped in 10 points. Charlottesville had to withstand four first half fouls stacking up on freshman point guard Jacoby Lynch who was attacking off the dribble throughout. His efforts and speed forced Albemarle to switch to full court pressure in the second quarter, a rare historical reversal of style where the Patriots wanted to speed up the Black Knights. 

 

“We’re trying to put some pressure on them because I thought I had a deeper bench than them but ended up not playing them much in the second half,” Maynard said. “That’s the way we want to play though, get up and down and create some pressure for the other team.”

 

That pressure had some unintended consequences though as Charlottesville started heating up.

 

“The problem with that is we would lose track of Yates and then he’d be wide open when they did beat the press,” Maynard said. “That’s why we called it off but then he was hitting them right in our face so it still didn’t matter.”

 

When Yates and Hill were nursing cramps in the fourth, Albemarle struck with that balanced offense – Ben Wesson had 13 to round out four players in double figures – and the Black Knights sputtered in the closing minutes. 

 

Benny Koutone finished with eight points on the night and Noah Grevious had six as well as a behind the back save-turned-outlet-pass to Parler for a fastbreak finish in the third quarter.  

 

Albemarle heads into the winter break and will pick up again with holiday tournament action after Christmas while Charlottesville will host Broadway Tuesday night for a chance to avenge a season opening defeat at the hands of the Gobblers. 

 

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