During the Seniors' Ceremony. From left, Darien Dews, Jake Smith, William Anderson, YaYa Anderson, Taylor Lintecum with respective families and Munro Rateau.
“We’ve got to understand you just can’t go out there and show up. You’ve got to play hard as the other team. If we can learn that from a win, that’s good for us,” said FCHS head coach Munro Rateau.
Midway through the second quarter Louisa tied the Flucos at 18 all. After a timeout called by Rateau, Fluvanna (No. 2 AP) ended the half on a 14-4 run. The 1-3-1 zone defense, combined with better defensive rebounding sparked the run.
“Coach put on the white board [before the game] we had to rebound, get open shots and run the floor,” said wing player Vinny Agee of the team’s first half run.
“Late in second quarter we started running. YaYa [Anderson] made some great passes and we had some wing [players] that got out and scored. That kind of got us going then the second half we kept pushing the ball and got some easy baskets,” said Rateau.
Listen to a recording of the Fluco SN broadcast
Coming out of the break, Louisa cut the lead to six and eight twice. FCHS would slowly stretch the lead to 20 points by midway through the fourth quarter before the final 24-point margin of victory.
The game wasn’t completely easy for Fluvanna. The Flucos didn’t score for the first 3:30 minutes. Louisa managed just one free throw during the span, occurring just 10 seconds before the FCHS basket. There was just the one lead change and two ties the entire game.
“Last couple of days of practice everyone’s been taking it easy, not working up to their potential and we came out sluggish today — just like coach told us we would. We realized that and we had a halftime conversation about it and put it together,” said senior Jake Smith.
YaYa Anderson lead the way for Fluvanna with 16 points. Agee finished with 12 points while Jalen Harrison put in 10 points. Smith ended the night with eight points.
Prior to the game Flucos honored their five elders from the team. Players Darien Dews, Taylor Lintecum, Anderson and Smith along with manager William Anderson were escorted by their respective parents for Senior Night.
“They’ve all been great. I played with them all for many years — I played AAU with them so we mesh really well, we play great as a team and they are really great friends as well,” said Smith of the senior corps.
“The senior class has been great. They’ve done a great job of giving us leadership because if you take those four kids off the team, [Blake Hills] was the only player that played on the varsity team last year,” said Rateau. “We only had five guys coming back and we have a bunch of young kids.
“There’s not a harder worker in the district than Taylor and he gives that ‘you’ve got to work as hard as me attitude’ and Jake’s a great passer. Darien comes to practice and works hard. The seniors have done a great job of giving us leadership at practice and also in the games.”
Fluvanna is stil first in the Jefferson District with a 5-0 mark and boast a 14-1 record overall.
Next up for the Flucos is border rival Goochland. The Bulldogs, playing this year in the Group A James River District, come to the Shoebox on Jan. 23 with tipoff set for 7:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the Fluco SN.
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