In a wild night of basketball, both Washington and Williamsburg were able to take a game off the other, with the Raider girls picking up a blowout 70-29 win, while the Demon boys rallied from 15 down to take the nightcap 79-74.
The Washington girls were up against what is and was likely to be their toughest opponent of the season in the #5 ranked team in Class 3A. The Demons held for a short time, with an Adalyn Long 4-point play cutting the lead to 12-10, but a 9-0 run to end the quarter gave the Raiders the separation they needed. An even second quarter led to a 31-19 halftime deficit. In the second half, Williamsburg scored, and scored, and scored some more, taking a massive advantage heading into the final quarter. Washington was outscored 39-10 in the final two quarters, eventually falling by its largest margin of defeat this season, 70-29.
Adalyn Long’s 8 led the way, but Ashlynn Long and Sarah Berdo were right behind with 7 and 6. The Raiders’ six-footer Zoe Allen scored 17, becoming the fifth Williamsburg girls’ basketballer to cross the 1000-point mark for her career. Washington falls to 11-9, while Williamsburg improves to 16-5.
Head coach Colin Mulford says Washington lost too much of what was working for the Demons in the first half of the first quarter. “Our physicality wasn’t as strong as it was in that first half. We were relying on too many straight line drives and not communicating and not hedging as well as we usually do.”
While the girls’ contest ended in a blowout, the boys’ game was an all-out war. At first, it didn’t seem like Washington would be up to the task, with the Demons falling behind 41-27 at the half following a 27-13 second quarter. However, after the half, Washington seemingly returned to the team they were before their three-game losing skid. Nic Stone, who was left in the game despite picking up a fourth foul just a minute into the third quarter, erupted for 13 points in the third quarter alone, helping the Demons chip away bit by bit. Finally, in the fourth quarter, Tate Greiner’s third three-pointer of the half lifted the Demons into their first lead since the first quarter, 59-57. From there, it was a tense, back and forth affair, with Drew Conrad and Rajan Roth taking over the scoring effort to keep the Raiders at bay. A Washington turnover gave the game a little intrigue, as Williamsburg brought it back to two with about 30 seconds to play, but the Demons held on, claiming a wild 79-74 win to break their losing streak.
Roth led with 19, while Stone and Conrad each contributed 17. Kael Williams put forth another 14 point effort, while Tate Greiner was one point shy of making it a full starting five, double-digit game, he had 9. The Raiders’ Charley Hoffman and Dylan Weisskopf both led all scorers with 21. The Demons improve to 11-8, while Williamsburg falls to 3-16.
Head coach Collin Stark says the version of the Demons that put 52 down in the second half Monday is the strongest version of his squad. “It was the culmination of what our season might come down to. As a team in that second half, I think they can play with anybody. But it’s getting past the things that we can’t control, whether it’s different calls that you felt like you should of had… It was a physical game. They let them play, and we’ve gotta come ready, ready to compete.”
Both Washington teams will be in action at Burlington, but on different days. The girls will face off against the Greyhounds tonight, while the boys will wait until Friday.