They should have been rusty, or so you’d think.

After all, the James River Rapids hadn’t convened for 11 days, no thanks to the snow, ice, and cold that had kept them out of school for seven of those days and off the basketball court where they’d been thriving before their weather-dictated hiatus.

With the Chuck Collins Gym unavailable, Coach Jonathan Parker-Smith’s guys had had no time to refine their offensive schemes, defensive execution, rebounding skills, or shooting touch.

It was a recipe for step-slow timing, missed shots, and turnovers galore.

Right?

Actually, no.

In their 77-54 victory over Richmond High School for the Arts Wednesday night, they hit 28-of-53 shots from the field (including 11 strikes from behind the arc) and 10-of-14 from the foul line while using their height advantage to outrebound the visiting Bulldogs 42-30.

Considering the long layoff, did their 32-minute, eye-of-the-tiger performance come as a surprise?

Hardly.

How, then, did they summon their uncommon court awareness and competitive zeal?

“Just playing hard,” said Jayden Nichols, a 5-6 senior point guard. “Effort. Just giving it our all at all times.”

Which translates to…

“We shot the ball very well and executed our plays,” he added. “We played very good defense and ran our sets to perfection, as usual.”

RHSA, an evolving team which competes with feistiness, spirit, and intentionality under first-year head coach Jesse Pellot-Rosa, played James River (13-2) evenly for much of the first half.

After trailing 19-14 after a quarter, they opened the second with a 9-2 run and took a 23-21 lead when Sha Facy (10 points) nailed a 3-pointer from the left baseline 4:41 before halftime.

After Parker-Smith called time, 6-6 junior Nolan Anthony (22 points) hit the second of his four 3-pointers, also from the left baseline, to restore the Rapids’ advantage.

The Bulldogs (4-9) answered by forcing a turnover, which resulted in Facy’s dunk in transition off an assist by Ken Parker (10 points) for a 25-24 lead.

Nichols (13 points) responded with a 3-pointer from the left wing, which spurred an 11-4 run that sent the Rapids into the half up 36-29.

“Early on, we couldn’t put stops together back-to-back,” Parker-Smith said. “That led to a close game in the first half. We had to claw back a little bit and contain them. We were solid overall. This was a good win for us.”

The Rapids blew the game wide open with a 27-8 third quarter. 

The onslaught began when Anthony scored on a putback, 6-8 senior Anthony Creecy (12 points) scored on a transition layup following a defensive rebound, and 6-8 junior Bodi Corley (12 points) scored twice from the paint, both times off Creecy assists.

A 3-pointer by Lewis Mallory (23 points) at 5:30 cut RHSA’s deficit to 44-34, but the Rapids closed with a 19-3 run to go into the fourth quarter with a commanding 63-37 lead.

In the last three minutes, Will Crisafi hit a 3-pointer from the left wing, Corley scored twice off Anthony assists, Malachi Davis scored from close range off an offensive rebound, and, with five seconds remaining, Crisafi scored from the paint off yet another Anthony assist.

“The big thing tonight was that I didn’t know what we were going to look like,” Parker-Smith said. “The way we played together down the stretch was impressive. We’ll build off of that.”

During that game-changing third quarter, James River shot 12-for-16, and, with a switch from 2-3 zone to man-to-man, limited the Bulldogs to 3-for-15 and outrebounded them 16-2.

“We have a lot of defenses,” said Crisafi, a 6-0 senior. “We switch them up to throw the offenses off.  With the man-to-man, if they drive, we have help, and then we’re all rotating to try to get steals.”

The Rapids have now won eight straight games. 

 “The entire locker room, 1 through 15, believes we can go deep in the playoffs,” Crisafi said. “We have to have the mindset that we can go out there and accomplish things, even if we’re off for 11 days.

“You want to be in the gym. You want to be getting shots up, but you know it isn’t going to last forever. You’ll be back on the court. You’ll be able to compete with your brothers.”