Varina gets tested, prevails in playoff clash with Monacan

The victory did not come easily, nor was it supposed to.

Easy wins, you see, don’t fuel the Varina Blue Devils’ competitive fire, or at least not as the no-holds-barred, down-to-the-wire challenge that the visiting Monacan Chiefs threw at them did Wednesday night in the Class 4B semifinal contested for 32 frenetic minutes on the Coach Glenn Rudacille Court.

Coach Kenneth “Boom” Randolph’s guys ultimately prevailed 69-63, but not without fending off time-and-again the Chiefs’ courageous, never-back-down effort that had them in the mix until the final minute.

“It was an old school basketball game,” Randolph said. “It was two teams competing, looking for an opportunity to play for the next level, which means states.

“It was definitely a dogfight.”

Varina, the top seed, earned the right to host No. 6 Courtland, which triumphed 68-50 over No. 7 Atlee, in the regional championship game Friday at 7 p.m. Both regional finalists advance to the Class 4 state tournament, which begins next week.

Against No. 5 Monacan (14-8), the Blue Devils (17-2 and winners of 17 straight) opened with an 11-2 run sparked by 3-pointers by Caleb Straughter (13 points) and Kaleb Wyche (14 points) and appeared on the way to a blowout.

Didn’t happen, of course. Not with the Chiefs’ all-senior lineup that includes four-year starters Amare Cooper and Tai Bowler.

“We’re a good basketball team, and we think we can play with anybody, any day,” said Monacan coach R.J. Spelsberg. “We have two stars, and they both showed up and played through adversity and injuries tonight.

“We’ve started off slowly in other games this year. We have an experienced team. They have some poise, and they chipped away and got back in. We built a lead and gave it up, but we were still in the game after that.”

Cooper’s and Bowler’s inspired play and 3-pointers by Brayden Townes and Jackson Bunn enabled the Chiefs to close to 13-10 after a quarter.

They began the second with an 11-0 run made possible by their mobile, intentionally played 2-3 matchup zone, a 3-ball by Oliver Demick, and four close-range buckets, two by Bowler and one each by Bunn and Cooper.

Down 21-13, the Blue Devils used a timeout to compose themselves, then delivered a 15-4 run of their own sparked by two buckets from the paint by Jayden Walker, a 3-ball and short jumper by Roman Dennis, layups by Shanundre Williams (11 points) and Straughter, and a pair of free throw by Duke Atkins.

Cooper’s 3-pointer from the right baseline at the buzzer off an inbounds pass from Townes forged a 28-all tie at the break.

The third quarter began at the breakneck pace that the second concluded, the Chiefs built a slight lead, and at 3:20, Dennis’s 3-pointer from the right wing evened the game at 39.

The Blue Devils then closed with a 9-2 run to take a 48-41 lead into the fourth.

“We focused on rebounding,” said Randolph of the rally. “We got some breaks, and we made some timely shots. That helped us pull away. After that, it was a free-throw shooting contest.”

In the third period, Dennis scored 13 of his 25 points.

“I had to show up for my team,” said Dennis, a 6-1 sophomore. “My teammates got me the ball. The shots were there. I knocked them down.”

By the final quarter, Cooper, a 6-3 senior who finished with 30 points, was nursing leg cramps that limited his mobility and underwent treatment for a bloody nose.

Nevertheless, he soldiered on courageously, as did Bowler, who took several hits that knocked him to the floor but quickly bounced up, re-entered the fray, and finished with 17 points.

“We knew they had two good players,” said Dennis, “but we didn’t think they’d come at us like they did. We just had to keep fighting and won the game.”

After Varina went up 50-42 on Dennis’s putback at 7:17, the Chiefs closed the gap to 50-47 at 5:30 after Cooper hit 2-of-2 from the line, then penetrated and nailed a short jumper, and Demick swished a free throw.

“We didn’t want to lose,” said Straughter, a 6-6 senior, “so we laid everything out there.” 

That spirit and mindset served them well.

Try as they might, the Chiefs could get no closer as the Blue Devils executed their 1-2-2 press and front court defense as it was designed to control the pace of action, force 6-for-12 shooting, and facilitate a 13-9 rebounding edge in the final quarter.

And though they were hardly perfect from the line when Monacan was forced to foul, the Blue Devils’ 8-for-13 in the final two minutes was good enough.

“Win and advance,” Randolph said. “That’s what you want to do.”