The basketball season came to an end for the William Byrd High School team as both the girls and boys fell in Region 3D quarterfinal games on Tuesday. The boys lost at Cave Spring and the girls were defeated by Lord Botetourt in Daleville.
The boys game once beaten Cave Spring all they could handle. Byrd led 31-24 at the half and the Terriers were still holding on to a 43-40 lead heading into the fourth quarter. However, the Knights would finish on a 24-0 run, holding Byrd scoreless in the fourth quarter, to win by a score of 64-43.
“We (Trevor Ruble) hit a three late in the third quarter to take the lead and we didn’t score again,” said Byrd coach Brad Greenway.
Three of Byrd’s best players, seniors Cam Richardson, Trevor Ruble and Ross Divers, all got into foul trouble in the first half. Richardson is Byrd’s top scorer, Ruble is the point guard and Divers is the rim protector, which was important against a tall Cave Spring team.
“Those three had to sit for a third of the game and we struggled on offense when they were on the bench,” said Greenway. “It was a tough loss, but I’m very proud of our kids. We worked hard on Cave Spring all last week and we thought we had a good game plan. The kids played as hard as they could and I felt like we gave them our best punch.”
Richardson led the Terriers with 18 points while Ethan Hairston had 10 and Ruble had nine on three three-pointers. Richardson and Hairston had two three pointers each.
Byrd came into the tournament as the number eight seed so the Terriers had a “play in” game at home against ninth seeded Carroll County on Monday night. Byrd jumped to a 31-18 halftime lead and won every quarter on the way to a 68-56 win. Ruble led Byrd with 15 points, Richardson had 13 and Hairston had 11.
The girls were the fifth seed so they didn’t have to play Monday. They went right to Tuesday’s quarterfinal round where they found a familiar opponent in fourth seeded Lord Botetourt. The Cavaliers made it a season sweep over Byrd with a 59-36 win in Daleville, eliminating the Byrd girls from the tournament.
Sophia Chrisley, who missed much of the second half of the season with an injury, led the Terriers with 11 points. Emilie McCaskill had nine and Alexis Helton had six points.
The semifinal rounds of the Region 3D tournaments are tonight, Thursday. In the boys’ tournament Abingdon is at Cave Spring and Lord Botetourt will play at Northside, the fourth meeting between the two. The championship is at the site of the highest remaining seed on Saturday and Cave spring, at 24-1, is top seeded.
In the girls’ tournament Carroll County is the top seed and they’ll host LB tonight in a battle of Cavalies. Staunton River , the second seed at 24-0, will host Magna Vista tonight and, again, the championship is Saturday at the highest remaining seed.
The top two teams in the region advance to state play in both boys and girls. The region champ will get to host a quarterfinal state game and the runner-up will play on the road.
With the loss Tuesday Byrd’s girls finished with a 9-14 record in their first year under head coach Randy Bush.
“I’m very proud of this group of ladies, they played extremely hard,” said Bush. ‘The Ladies came into the game ready to compete and they did. Since it turned out to be our last game for this group, as a coach you want them to play their hardest and they did.
“It was about the Journey for them and not the destination. For this to be my first year at Byrd, I could not ask for a better group to have for my ‘Rookie ‘ year.”
Brad Greenway moved from the girls’ bench to the boys’ team in the off-season and he guided the boys to a 9-15 record.
“We had five games that we lost by one bucket,” said Greenway. “Everyone we played talked about how tough we were to put away. We had a good group of guys and I thought we moved the needle in the right direction.”
