Fans and celebrities of the L.A. Dodgers baseball team have long been known to arrive ‘fashionably late’ for games at their stadium outside Tinseltown.
Those who followed that same format at the Cave Spring gym Saturday night found themselves ‘fashionably out of luck.’
Going end-to-end from tipoff to final buzzer, Cave Spring and Northside put on quite a show before Cave Spring outlasted the Vikings 63-60 to capture the Region 3D championship in front of a standing-room-only crowd.
Knights’ 6ft-7 big-man Dylan Saunders hit a pair of free throws with with three seconds left to put Cave Spring up by three. After Northside head coach Bill Pope called a final timeout to set up the ensuing full-court play, Viking standout Lawrence Cole’s desperation heave from midcourt to tie missed just to the right as the packed house collectively held their breath and the horn sounded.
“This is the way a regional final should be,” Cave Spring head coach Jacob Gruse noted after the battle. “Huge game, big time atmosphere, sold out crowd.”
At 2:30 in the afternoon the line had already started forming outside the Cave Spring gym for the 6PM start. By 4, the line snaked down the parking lot to where the Knight athletic fields are located. By around 5, the tickets were gone.
On multiple occasions inside the gym, Cave Spring athletic director Jon Hartness got on the microphone and asked the fans to squeeze further to allow others a seat. It was like an audition at an orange juice factory.
Cave Spring affable ticket-taker Joan Farley got a spot on the steps below the deafening student section. “The tickets were gone so we started turning the crowd away and locked the doors to prevent more from entering,” Farley said, shaking her head. “I came back in to watch the game. This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen the whole game since we usually are selling tickets until halftime.”
One group who did arrive a little late was the Northside team, not hitting the court until 6 minutes had passed since the allotted 20-minute warmup session had begun. They were immediately given a boisterous greeting from the Cave Spring student section who kept the pedal down the rest of the night.
Once the ball went in the air a classic battle unfolded.
Back and forth they went until Cave Spring hit a late 3-pointer to lead 15-12 after the first quarter. The Knights remained on top 31-29 heading to the halftime break. The lead changed hands several times in the third quarter before the scoreboard settled at 47-47 heading to the final 8 minutes.
The game was on.
Northside quickly jumped out to a 5-point lead on the shoulders of Viking junior Sidney Webb, who finished with 15 points for the Vikings. Cave Spring countered with its signature pressure defense that closed the gap.
Senior 6ft-5 Bryce Cooper rose to the occasion in the stretch, on his way to 17 points, including 10 in the second half and 6-of-6 from the free throw line in the final 16 minutes. Cooper made his moves to the basket with contact galore from the Viking defense.
“I knew it was going to be a battle, yeah, a huge battle,” Cooper said on the court after the win. “I wanted the ball in my hands. The refs let us play and it got very physical in the third and fourth quarters.”
None was more crucial than Cooper’s two free throws with 13 seconds left that put the Knights up by four. The first attempt traveled around the rim twice, teased the crowd by stopping on the heel, then as though being nudged by a ghost, it slowly fell through the net.
“That one was something,” Cooper laughed. “I just watched and gave a little kick with my leg.”
Cooper followed by hitting the second.
“We stayed in the moment and handled the adversity well,” Gruse explained. “We didn’t panic and stayed the course. We knew we wanted to use our size and Northside plays so well. We wanted to get it inside and our guys did a great job of that. They finished well at the rim. Down the stretch, we needed stops to get scores. Contest their shots, two-hand rebounds and pound it inside.”
Northside wasn’t finished. Viking superstar Ayrion Journiette, named the Region MVP, raced down the court and put up an off-balance jumper from long-range that sliced the Knights’ lead to 61-60 with 5 seconds left. Pope immediately called the timeout to set up his defense.
Next man up for Cave Spring was Saunders, who took the inbounds pass, cradled the ball and was fouled. Saunders, who finished with a game-high 25 points, capped off his perfect 12-for-12 night at the charity stripe with the pair under extreme pressure. Both were nothing but net, and a final timeout by Northside led to the unsuccessful heave.
The sentiments of Saunders on stepping to the line in that situation?
“I wasn’t really thinking about anything,” he said matter-of-factly. “Just make them. We had run our transition and made good defensive stops down the stretch. Just make them.”
“They were incredible,” Gruse said of the late free-throw heroics. “Really performed under pressure.”
Knight senior Owyn Dawyot had another big game for Cave Spring, scoring 19 points, hitting three times from behind-the-arc and going 4-for-4 from the line.
“Big game and our game plan worked,” Dawyot noted. “Play as a team and be ready all the time. Then, just play. The crowd and our student section, they were unbelievable.”
“Our team fed off the student section,” Gruse added. “You could hardly hear yourself tonight. They brought so much energy for us. They are who we are and what we do—truly a sixth man.”
Cave Spring was 25-for-28 at the line (89%) on the night. Northside was equally efficient at 10-of-13 (77%).
Northside 5ft-11 junior Lawrence Cole finished with an impressive 20 points for the Vikings.
Cave Spring (26-1) advances to the state quarterfinals to play the Fluvanna County Flucos next Friday night in the Cave Castle, the stay-on-home-court reward for winning Saturday night. Northside (22-5) must travel to Region 3C champion Spotswood for their state quarterfinal matchup against the Trailblazers.
Bill Turner
