RUSTBURG — Matt Kimble got a fingertip on a potentially game-winning 3-pointer from the top of the key by Northside guard Parker Linden and Rustburg’s boys basketball team held off a second-half surge by the visiting Vikings for a 53-51 Region III, Division 3, quarterfinal victory on Tuesday night.
"That kid had been knocking shots down all game, so we made an adjustment and Matt came up with a big play," Red Devils coach Brantley Shields said of Linden, who sank three second-quarter 3-pointers.
"We just made sure we covered all their shooters and just made sure we were up in them but didn’t foul and Matt did a great job of contesting it," added Rustburg senior Marshall Wood, who finished with a game-high 22 points. "They’re a very tough team and they’re very resilient. They made a run, but we withstood it and made some plays at the end."
Adam Hardister (10 points), the quarterback of Northside’s football team, drilled a 3-pointer that tied the contest at 22 after Rustburg led 11-2 at the end of the first quarter.
"We got off to a really bad start offensively, just really timid and not ourselves," Vikings coach William Pope said after his senior-loaded team ended its season at 15-10. "After the first quarter, after we regrouped and said let’s start attacking like we know we can. It was a really good basketball game and, obviously, we’re really disappointed, but I’m proud of the way we battled."
Wood extended the Red Devils’ lead to 42-34 late in the third quarter by finishing a tough spin move after driving from the right corner and then deflecting a pass on the defensive end, recovering the loose ball and capping a fast break with a one-handed slam.
But Wood nearly met his match in Northside 6-foot-4 freshman center Chance Hall, who finished with 17 points and nine rebounds.
"He’s a heckuva player," Shields said. "He made some really big shots. We talked about in our scouting report and in our film sessions to make the freshman beat us and he almost did."
"Chance came off the bench and was just phenomenal," Pope added, noting he went right at Wood, a Virginia Tech recruit. "That’s what I just said, I said, ‘I know the key. We schedule somebody who’s going to an ACC school.’ Tonight was by far his best game of the year. He was just fantastic."
With the win, Rustburg (17-6) gets a Region III, Division 3, semifinal matchup with Rockbridge County, one of the top-ranked teams in the state, in the first game of tonight’s doubleheader at Brookville, starting at 6 p.m.
GIRLS BASKETBALL Region III, Division 3 Rustburg 74, Northside 69 (OT) Michelle Heath swished a running 35-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer, sending the game into overtime, and the Red Devils outscored the Vikings 8-3 in the final four minutes to survive and advance. "That was a great shot," said Rustburg junior Tayla Glass, who led all scorers with 34 points. "We were all thinking we were down, thinking we weren’t going to come back and she came out and got us into overtime." Rustburg (12-7) had three players reach double-doubles — Glass, who had a career-high 34 points and 15 rebounds, Heath, who netted a career-high 28 points and 17 rebounds to go with her four assists, three blocks and two assists, and O’Neka Jones, who had 10 rebounds and 14 rebounds before fouling out. Five players fouled out all together, including three for Northside (9-15), as the two teams combined to shoot 82 free throws, converting 41. "We just played together as a team and came back at the end," said Glass, who hit 15 out of her 22 free throws. "We had a lot of foul trouble, so we just had to play some really good defense. We came out of the man-to-man we were in because that didn’t work so we go into the 2-3 zone and that shut them down pretty good." The Red Devils (12-7) overcame a 50-36 third-quarter deficit to tie it at 66 on Heath’s last-second 3-pointer, closing the game on a 38-19 run. Rustburg gets a rematch with Brookville in Thursday’s Region III, Division 3, semifinals, which was supposed to be played at Northside, but may be moved to a neutral site.
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