Albemarle cruises past Western

Coming into the season the big question mark for the Albemarle boys basketball team was the backcourt.

While it was only one game, senior guard Adam Utz showed lots of promise against county rival Western Albemarle by leading his team to a 75-63 victory.

“I knew I had a big role coming up this year so I tried to get ready for the change,” Utz said. “This win was big because if you want to win them all, you’ve got to start off winning one.”

Utz put up 27 points to lead all scorers, and his clutch free throw shooting down the stretch helped to keep a surging Warriors team at bay.

“Adam’s got to be the leader of our guards, and he was tonight,” said Albemarle coach Greg Maynard. “I’m really pleased. I don’t expect him to score 25 every night, but I do expect him to play a solid game.”

Junior forward Cameron Anderson put up a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

“If Cameron plays hard all the time, he’s going to get his share of boards,” Greg Maynard said.

Andre Roberts was also instrumental, particularly in transition, and finished the game with 20 points and five steals.

Both teams came out rusty in their first regular-season games, but Albemarle’s rebounding help the Patriots (1-0) jump out to a 31-15 lead at the half.

“We played at a completely unacceptable effort level in the first half,” said Western coach Darren Maynard. “Albemarle just played way harder than us. That continued into the third quarter and then I thought we finally started playing hard in the final 10 minutes, but it was too late.”

The Patriots out-rebounded the Warriors 13-4 in the first half.

After a good tongue-lashing from their coach during a time out, the Warriors (0-1) finally came alive midway through the third quarter and began to dig into Albemarle’s 20-point lead.

By taking the ball to the hoop on nearly every possession and shooting 78 percent from the charity stripe, Western found itself within nine points of tying the game with 3 minutes to play.

“It’s true of most time when these teams play— the team that plays harder usually wins,” Darren Maynard said. “[Albemarle] did and they deserved to win this game.”

Ryan Hughes and Christian Pierce led the way for the Warriors, chipping in 18 and 16 points, respectively.