By Richard Carrier, Contributing Writer
richwrites@netzero.net

For the second time this season, the Blessed Sacrament Huguenot boys basketball team gave the VIS Division Three’s top team all it could handle. The Knights hosted number one state ranked Tidewater Academy last Friday night and fell 49-46 when John Moore’s corner three was blocked by the Warriors’ Tommy Starkee as the clock ran out.

Early on, it appeared the Warriors would steamroll the BSH boys. An opening three pointer by Casey Rickmond, run-outs off of defensive rebounds and Will Doyle’s power move down the lane gave the Warriors a 6-14 lead. But Moore, who had missed his first three attempts, fired in a long ball and Chris O’Hara arched in a short jumper to close the quarter with Tidewater leading 11-16.

Moore brought the house-packing Senior Night crowd to its feet with consecutive bombs to give the Knights their first lead at 17-16 with 6:57 left in the second quarter. Trevor Gilliam’s acrobatic pilfer of the Warriors’ Austin Westbrook led to Moore’s miss and Rickmond beat the Knights down court for an easy lay-up and the lead. Justin Yancy found Ethan Sill under the hoop and BSH led again, 19-18. But in a pattern that would plague the Knights game-long, Rickmond took the defensive rebound and streaked to the basket uncontested. Gilliam picked up his third foul and sat while Doyle pounded down the middle twice to score and Park Parker converted on, yet another, run-out. The Knights missed all five shots during that sequence and went to the locker room trailing 19-26.

Rickmon’s run-out completed the Warriors’ 10-0 run before Moore struck for another three. Gilliam, who could not find his shooting touch all game(2 points), misfired on three consecutive attempts and Rickmond began to wear a track in the floor with two more flights to the hoop to get to 25-32. But Austin Wingfield, the only senior on the squad, reentered the contest and immediately knocked down a short base-line jumper and pulled down a rebound to ignite his personal 8 point run. Starke drove the lane to score, Wingfield responded with a pull-up jumper at the foul line and converted Yancy‘s rebound into another smooth jumper to end the third quarter at 31-34 Tidewater.

After Mike Green’s one free throw, Wingfield went inside to pull down an offensive rebound and stick it back. At the 6:12 mark, the Knights only trailed by two points.

Rickmond showed his range with a top of the circle three and O’Hara, who had been zero for four from distance, retaliated with his own three.

Green drove the lane to draw free throws- he made the first and missed the second, but the BSH rebounders committed a cardinal sin and allowed Rickmond inside to stick back the errant shot for a five-point spread. After a BSH turnover, Green pulled up for a short jumper and with 2:25 remaining, Tidewater led by seven.

Moore picked Starkee’s pocket and fired a scoring pass to Gilliam, but Gilliam committed his fourth foul on the inbounds and sent Westbrook to the line for a critical one-and-one. Westbrook converted both to maintain the seven point lead at 38-45.

Moore quickly cut that lead to four with a highly pressured three from the right corner with 1:17 remaining on the clock.

Blessed Sacrament pressured the inbound pass and trapped along the sideline and somehow forced a turn over. But the possession appeared fruitless as Wingfield failed on a short jumper and Marquis Smith missed the follow from point-blank range. Moore muscled his way inside to pull down Smith’s miss and also failed to convert, but this time Smith was not going to be denied and slid the miss over the rim. With 37 seconds remaining the Warriors led by two at 43-45.

Tidewater went into a four corner style offense and skillfully employed cross-court passing to keep the Knights from fouling for 20 seconds. As the clock ran down the Knights had no choice but to wrap up the one Warrior they did not want to foul and Rickmond calmly bottomed out the front end of the one-and-one. He did the same on the second free throw.

Down by four points with only 7.2 seconds left, the Knights hustled down court and took the first available three-point opportunity. Yancy’s third, fourth and fifth points barely rippled the net as he drew the Knights to within one. With no choice, BSH sent Rickmond back to the foul line with 5.3 seconds left. Again, in the one-and-one Rickmond swished the first. Coach Ben Pomeroy called a time out, but if that was an attempt to “ice” Rickmond, it failed. Coach Pomeroy called his final time out to set up the play, which worked well enough for Moore to launch the tying three from his favorite spot in the corner. He got the attempt off, but Starkee charged along the baseline and skied to crush the shot three feet from Moore’s hand

Moore led the 10-7 Knights with 18 points, O’Hara added nine and Wingfield had eight. Rickmond topped the 24-1 Warriors, and all scorers, with 22.

Starkee added nine and Westbrook seven.