Robinson Boys Spoil Wildcat Senior Night

Centreville (5-16, 1-9) hoped to end its regular season on Friday night with a district win against rival Robinson (12-10. 3-7). However, the Rams spoiled the Wildcats’ senior night in dominant fashion behind Mike Rice’s 23-point performance to defeat Centreville, 74-61.

After leading by nine points for most of the game, Robinson opened up its lead to 15 points with 1:50 to play in the third quarter. But Cameron Owens got hot and fought back for Centreville, driving the baseline often to drain 10-foot floaters high above Ram defenders. Still, Rice and Ian Evancho crashed the boards on both offense and defense for five boards apiece, and led the Rams to more than double the Wildcats’ rebounding on the night.

Rice shot 10-for-13 for a game-high 23 points – 15 of which came in the second half. Evancho went 5-for-6 scoring 15 points and hustling the floor at full speed. Ram point guard Chris Calcador came off the bench in the fourth to add six points and three boards to seal the game for Robinson and improve its district record to 3-7.

Owens scored a team-high 19 points and grabbed five boards and said his last regular season game of his high school career meant a lot to him but thought Robinson might have played with more aggression.

“It was very important to me and all of us,” Owens said. “I think they just came out with a little more energy than we did and put a little more effort into it than we did. We just have to play hard and do our best in districts.”

Before the game, Centreville Head Coach Drew Murphy said a win would be huge for the morale of his team.

 “It [a win] makes a lot of difference because we want to be playing well going into the tournament,” he said. “We feel like we haven’t played well and don’t have a lot of wins to show for it, and it’s important for us to play well and win because we want to have a good feeling going into next week.”

The first quarter got off to a blistering pace for both teams, as they ran the floor on fast breaks and lost interest in the half-court game. Robinson owned the glass and took a slight lead behind Rice and Dan Lee, who combined for 13 points in the first half.

Yet Centreville showed its resolve causing turnovers from the Rams in the second quarter and drawing fouls to get to the stripe to cut into Robinson’s lead. Wildcat forwards Will Doyle and Travis Whitney found their way through the paint to combine for 14 points.

However, Robinson stretched its lead to 11 points when Lee knocked down a 21-footer for three with seconds remaining in the half.

Centreville ran a zone defense in the second half and double-teamed the Rams on the perimeter. But Robinson guard Robert Pillow found his big men down low for easy layups. The Rams also went to the zone defense and held Owens to seven points in the second half, which slowed down Centreville’s offense drastically as the Rams continued to pound the boards.

Rams coach Brian Nelson said he was impressed with his defense throughout the game.

“That was probably our best rebounding game of the year,” Nelson said. “Being undersized, that’s an area we have to work very hard at and some nights we do it much better than others, and this was definitely a great team effort on the glass. I thought Ian Evancho rebounded like a man tonight, but he had help with guys giving up their bodies to take some Centreville guys out of the play to open up some of those opportunities.”

Rice hit everything he put up in the fourth and closed out the game to give his Rams another district win.

“It’s a great momentum and we knew we could get this win,” Rice said. “We are ready to play anyone, and it was great to get back to my old self and a great team win. I had an injury, and my points slipped down a bit but I am back now and good to go.

“It is great to have consistency from our whole team. Three guys with double figures – you will beat most teams with that, so it’s great.”

Evancho agreed with Rice and added his team is deep and can shoot well.

“On offense we hit our shots usually, and it’s all about our intensity on defense on zone,” Evancho said. “All five of the guys on our starting line ups can hit high double figures.”

Nelson said his team is well prepared for the tournament next week.

“We have to be disruptive defensively and turn that into some easy baskets and have to push the tempo when we have the opportunity," Nelson said. “Our guys did a good job of recognizing when the opportunities were there and when they were not, and that tells me we are ready to go into districts.”