Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 25, 1993 TAG: 9302250125
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CHRIS STEUART STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
BLACKSBURG BUMPS CARROLL
Everyone should have just hushed their mouths.But, nooo, somebody had to go and tell the Blacksburg High School boys' basketball team that Wednesday night's game against Carroll County was the opening round of the New River District Tournament.
"Somebody calls it a tournament and all of a sudden you do everything different than you did during the regular season," Blacksburg coach Bob Trear said.
The Indians kept one thing consistent, however - they won.
Blacksburg prevailed 58-49 in a rugged battle decided during the final two minutes.
The Indians bolted to a 7-0 lead at the 4:33 mark of the first quarter before Carroll County coach Pat Sharp put a stop to it by calling a timeout.
The Cavaliers went on an 11-3 run to take an 11-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.
"We settled down after that timeout," Sharp said. "That was the best ball we played all night. But our offense never really got on track."
Blacksburg's Jay Safford scored 12 of his game-high 20 points in the first half to help the Indians keep pace. But Carroll County's John Wolford, who scored a team-high 18 points, swished a fall-away baseline jumper at the halftime buzzer to put the Cavaliers up 22-21.
About two minutes into the second half, Wolford made another jump shot to make the score 24-21. That was the widest margin of the quarter, which had four ties and four lead changes and ended knotted at 34.
Trear said his offense focused on getting the ball inside for most of the game, but Carroll County's defense clogged the middle and made the Indians force shots.
"I thought [Carroll County] played good defense all night," Trear said. "They cut the things off that we wanted to do inside. In tournaments, sometimes you put restraints on the kids that they haven't had all year."
Greg Shockley broke out of those restraints and opened the Indians' offense up in the fourth quarter by hitting two of his three 3-pointers.
The first gave Blacksburg a 39-34 lead. Carroll County twice pulled to three points before Shockley launched his third 3-pointer to put the Indians up 48-42 with 1:42 to play.
Wolford nailed a 3-pointer that cut Blacksburg's lead to 54-49 with 29 seconds remaining, but the Indians connected on four of six from the free-throw line to seal the win.
Radford will play Christiansburg tonight at 7:30 at Blacksburg High School. The winner of that game will face Blacksburg in the championship game on Friday night at 7:30. In the event of postponement because of snow, the games will be pushed back a day. CARROLL COUNTY (49)
Dalton 1 6-6 9, Kilbourne 1 2-5 4, Leonard 5 1-2 12, Banks 2 0-0 4, Hawks 0 1-3 1, Larrowe 0 1-2 1, Wolford 7 3-6 18. Totals 16 14-24 49. BLACKSBURG (58)
Shockley 3 2-2 11, Perdue 1 4-5 6, Turman 1 5-6 7, Wheeler 2 0-3 4, Safford 8 4-6 20, Araman 3 4-7 10. Totals 18 19-29 58. Carroll County Blacksburg
Three-point goals: Shockley 3, Dalton, Leonard, Wolford. Team fouls: Carroll County 23, Blacksburg 20. Fouled out: Kilbourne. JV: 31-23, Blacksburg.