Madison’s Carter elevates game

Madison’s Jerel Carter had a monster game last week in a critical rivalry matchup for the Mountaineers. Carter fell just three rebounds short of a quadruple double against Clarke County in a 77-44 victory, but the performance left the junior guard at least one critic — his mother.

“She gets on me about everything,” Carter said while laughing. “I was 0 for 8 shooting threes against Clarke and my mom chewed me out on the ride home.”

Carter’s statistics against Clarke were initially reported as a quadruple double but were corrected after Madison coach Tim Taylor reviewed the tape. The well-rounded guard had 12 points, 12 assists, 10 steals and seven rebounds, plus a trio of blocks. Not bad for one night’s work for the 2008 All-Bull Run District second teamer.

“Jerel just does a lot of things,” Taylor said. “That’s a kid that can score 20-25 a game if he gets aggressive, but he’s so unselfish. And he deflects so many passes — we pressure you for 94 feet, and that funnels into his game.”

Carter claimed that the opponent, traditional Bull Run power Clarke and a Madison rival, played a big part in his elevated play.

“Everybody was hyped for that game,” Carter said.

Carter has filled a number of different gaps for the Mountaineers (15-0), at times stepping up in the scoring department to make up for a slow start by Madison’s usual scoring leader, Logan Terrell.

“If Logan doesn’t start off early then I kind of feel that there’s a problem, so I try and do what I can until Logan gets back to how he is,” Carter said. 

Important matchup in JD

A critical game that might decide who can challenge currently unbeaten Charlottesville and second place William Monroe for the Jefferson District title are slated for this week.

Orange heads south Tuesday to take on a Fluvanna squad that has lost to just the Black Knights and Greene Dragons. The Hornets picked up a win over Western last Friday, and if they’re going to contend, Orange needs to string together a couple of victories, starting with Fluvanna.

Fluvanna needs a win too to stay on track after knocking off Louisa County 47-36. If the Loyd sisters — Mia and K-anna — as well as Ariel Stewart and Shannon Bossieux can stay solid for Fluvanna, the Flucos will have a chance to avenge the early season losses to Charlottesville and Monroe, but they’ll have to do it on the road. Fluvanna travels for both those contests.

Western comes on strong

A lot of fans focused on the three calls by officials at the end of Western Albemarle’s 67-65 victory over Charlottesville, but the Warriors’ offensive performance got lost in the mix.

Western scorched the nets by shooting 71 percent from the field, missing just eight total shots on the night. The Warriors were blistering from beyond the arc, knocking down six of nine 3-pointers, and they turned the ball over just 14 times against the Black Knights aggressive pressure defense.

The Warriors followed up that critical road win with a win at home against Orange County where Western again shot well. Travis Washington buried seven 3-pointers en route to a 25-point performance.

Western gets the early part of this week off, but they’ll try and keep the wins coming against Louisa Friday.

Patriots struggling late

With the exception of its fourth-quarter meltdown, Albemarle played well for much of Friday’s contest against district-leading Stafford.

In fact, the Patriots broke to a 7-3 run to start the game. The Indians got back into it with their perimeter play, hitting three 3-pointers in the first quarter to take the lead. But Albemarle tied the game at 11-11 with a nifty move in the lane from Cameron Anderson. The Patriots regained the lead after an Adam Utz (11 points) layup and held onto it until 5:12 to play in the game when Stafford applied a stifling full-court pressure defense.

“Albemarle’s a great team with a great tradition and a great coaching staff,” said Dan Hornick, who was subbing for Stafford coach Steve Spicer. “And we knew coming in here that some things were going to have to happen, and they fell into place.”

On the other hand, things just fell apart for the Patriots over the final eight minutes as the visitors outscored them 23-8. According to Albemarle coach Greg Maynard, his team needs to play with intensity for an entire game in order to be successful.

“We’re searching for answers on that,” Maynard said.

Anderson has big first half

Big man Anderson provided several highlights for Albemarle, finishing with a game-high 19 points — 13 of which came in the first half as he helped the Patriots to a 29-25 halftime lead.

The 6-foot-7 junior swingman made two crowd-pleasing dunks, including one in the third quarter as Jake Hendrix made a long outlet pass to Andre Roberts on the inbounds play, and Roberts flipped it to Anderson for the two-hand jam.

Anderson filled the stat sheet with seven rebounds, three steals and two blocks, but the Patriots were unable to feed the ball to him inside when it mattered most.

“We couldn’t get him the ball inside because our perimeter players couldn’t beat their pressure,” Maynard said. “And when he was getting the ball he was out there where the guards should be — and that’s not where we want him.”

Blue Ridge, Miller ready for rematch

How important was Blue Ridge’s victory over the Miller School last week? Well, it kept the Barons’ perfect VIC record intact (4-0) and now puts the pressure on Miller. Blue Ridge, the No. 1-ranked team in Division 1, will play host to the Mavericks in a rematch on Feb. 17.

“I’m sure we’ll end up playing each other three times this year, it’s just Round 1,” said Blue Ridge coach Bill Ramsey. “But whenever you can win on the road, it’s really big. They’re a very good team — they don’t go down easy. I will take any win here.”

Despite the win, Ramsey knows his team still needs to go back to the basics.

“The whole game they killed us on the boards and getting second shots,” said Ramsey, whose team was outrebounded by 10. “We’ve just got to go back to work and work on boxing out. We’re usually bigger than the other team and we rely on that too much instead of the fundamentals of boxing out. It really showed.”

Blue Ridge continued its winning ways with a 60-54 win over Carlisle School on Saturday. The Barons visit Hargrave Military Academy today.

Parker shines in loss

Mychal Parker provided a spark for the Miller School, who led all scorers with 23 points. The 6-foot-6 junior also pulled down seven rebounds and came up with three steals in the close loss.

“They were keying on [Mychal] and we knew that, and he was still able to find some openings,” said Miller coach Fred Wawner, whose team bounced back with a win over Virginia Episcopal on Friday. “We needed him to score a little bit and he stepped up and was aggressive. Everybody really was a little more aggressive because we needed them to be. We needed to find points in different ways.”

The Mavericks also got a boost from the 6-foot-8 Hippolyte Tsafack, who dominated the boards, grabbing a team-high 12 rebounds, 10 of which came on the offensive glass. Tsafack was instrumental in getting key putbacks, which helped his team climb back into the game after trailing by as many as 16. He finished with 12 points. Preston Terrell also reached double figures with 10 points, including two 3-pointers.

By the numbers…

Madison County is 15-0 this season and holds the No. 1 spot in the Group A Associated Press poll. ... During the Mountaineers’ win over Monticello on Saturday, junior Logan Terrell notched his 1,000th career point. ... Madison is

7-0 against Jefferson District schools, and will get a chance at another on Friday when it hosts Fluvanna County. ... St. Anne’s-Belfield, which boasts a 4-0 record in the Prep League, has won 11 straight games.