Charlottesville girls rally to top Louisa

The Charlottesville girls basketball team lived to see another day by defeating Louisa, 48-40, Friday night in the Jefferson District Tournament.

Charlottesville coach Dee Mitchelson-Shaver challenged her team to get a fresh start in the tournament and take advantage of an opportunity to extend its season.

“It’s a perfect time to click,” Mitchelson-Shaver said. “I told them the season starts over tonight. We had a roller-coaster regular season. The season will last as long as we want to it to. We have to bring it every night.”

It was Louisa who struck first. The Lions started the game with an aggressive man defense and full-court press, which forced nine Charlottesville turnovers in the first quarter. Louisa scored in transition and got several buckets in the paint to jump out to an 11-0 lead. Charlottesville struggled to find a rhythm and did not put any points on the board until London Todd hit a pair of free throws with three minutes left in the period.

“Louisa is a real dangerous team to come out flat against. I told the girls not to be complacent because they had gotten two wins against them in the regular season,” Mitchelson-Shaver said. “At this point, the tournament is do or die every night. No team is going to lay down for you. Louisa came out with guns blazing. We had the conversation about did we want the season to end tonight? It’s a real possibility. We got a little fire in us the second quarter.”

By the second quarter, Charlottesville started to connect. The Black Knights kept finding their way to the basket and used a press of their own to force Louisa turnovers and slowly began climbing out of their initial hole. Kendall Ballard hit a set of foul shots right before the half, but the Black Knights still trailed 21-20 heading into the locker room.

Both teams came out strong in the third quarter. After trading buckets and the lead, they entered the final period tied at 29-29.

Tamara Starchia knocked down a 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter, and Charlottesville never trailed again. The Black Knights benefitted from Ballard and Todd hitting clutch free throws late in the quarter. Louisa hung with Charlottesville until the end, but did itself no favors by missing nine consecutive foul shots. The Lions lost what edge they potentially had when starter Khadijah Winkey was injured by a hard hit and had to leave the game with 3:16 remaining.

Ballard and Todd led Charlottesville with 14 points apiece. Ballard added eight boards and two blocked shots. Sydney Calloway chipped in with nine points.

Tierra Jackson paced Louisa with 12 points. Brianna Whalen added nine.

Charlottesville will face No. 1 seed Powhatan on Tuesday in a semifinal matchup. Mitchelson-Shaver is confident that her team can continue postseason play.

“We’ve played them very closely this season when we play smart ball,” Mitchelson-Shaver said. “This district tournament really is wide open.”