Handley boys too much for Fauquier in 65-49 win
Posted: December 4, 2012
Special to The Winchester Star
WINCHESTER — The Handley boys’ basketball team began the game with six straight buckets to pull ahead early against Fauquier Monday and never looked back, defeating the Falcons easily 65-49 to extend its early season winning streak to two.
“We still have a ways to go”, said Handley coach Tommy Dixon. “We have some guys that have experience, and some that don’t. But I think once we are able to put it all together, we’ll be okay.”
Buster Wigley and Jake Rudolph had the hot hand early for the Judges, helping Handley pull ahead 15-5 over the first four minutes of play. Rudolph nailed one of his three 3-pointers during the early offensive explosion and Wigley was a perfect 3 for 3 from the field.
“It was very intense out there, but we knew that we needed to take control of the game early,” Rudolph said. “We came into this season with high expectations. There is a lot of pressure to get wins so we know that we have to perform well.”
When the Judges perfect streak from the field finally ended midway through the period, it came crashing down. Handley missed its next eight field-goal attempts and added only three more points, all from the line, for the rest of the quarter.
The Judges’ defense, however, helped Handley keep its big lead. The Falcons had difficulty all night penetrating and were forced to take low-percentage shots from the perimeter.
“We hoped coming into the game to play better than we did,” Fauquier coach Wayne Brizzi said. “But Handley is a very good team, and they executed well. I thought they were the better team tonight. I wish that we had played better and given them a better game.”
Fauquier was only able to hit three of its 16 attempts from the field in the opening quarter. Fortunately for the Falcons, two of them were 3-pointers by Dillon Tapscott. The Fauquier senior’s scoring from beyond the 3-point line was the only thing that kept the Falcons in the game.
Things didn’t improve much for Fauquier in the second quarter. The Judges held the Falcons again to just 3 of 16 from the field and Tapscott, who had scored six of Fauquier’s 10 first quarter points, was held to just two points in the period.
The Falcons did hit all six of their free throws in the first half, compared to Handley’s less-than-adequate 10 of 18, but the Judges were still able to expand their lead to 33-19 by hafttime thanks to another four points by Rudolph and six from teammate Darion Robinson.
Fauquier came out for the second half and played with more energy than it did in the first half and slowly cut into the Handley lead. Tapscott began the scoring in the third quarter with a 3-pointer and J. J. Roberts followed with a layup drawing the Falcons to within nine at 33-24.
Rudolph and Wigley brought the Judges back and Handley led 40-24 with 5:21 still to play in the third period.
Fauquier, however, was not yet ready to throw in the towel and, with 4:22 left in the third quarter exploded for a 6-0 run that again got it to within 10 with two minutes left in the period.
“I didn’t think that we rebounded the ball very well,” Dixon said. “And I also thought that we had some turnovers that we shouldn’t have had. We have to make our players responsible for what they’re not doing correctly. We have drills that are designed to correct the mistakes we made tonight, and we intend to use them to get better.”
Robinson and Rudolph, though, used to last two minutes to lead Handley on a seven-point run that left Fauquier down 51-33 with just eight minutes to play.
To the Falcon’s credit they never gave up, despite the large Judges’ lead.
Tapscott connected for two more 3-pointers in the final period and led Fauquier for the night in scoring with 19 points. The Falcons also used the free-throw line to score points, hitting 8 of 10 from the line in the final eight minutes.
None of that, however, mattered as Handley responded by slowing down the pace of the game and hitting all four of its free-throw attempts in the period. Cameron Jackson also aided the Judges cause in the period, scoring six of his 14 points for the night.
Rudolph led all scorers with 23 points. Robinson also scored in double figures for the Judges with 11 points.
“There were times out there when I thought we played well,” Brizzi said. “We just need to get more consistent, and play like that the entire game.”