Home sweet home.
The Cave Spring boys basketball team has faced the daunting task of being without their true home court this season while construction continues on the high school on Chaparral Drive.
Scheduling a myriad of venues as substitute home courts, three games were set to be played at Cave Spring Middle School, a bandbox size gym that ironically was the home court to the original Cave Spring High dating back to the 1950s, and currently nicknamed as a miniature Cameron Indoor Stadium, home to the Duke Blue Devils. Small, cozy and seats on row-one that compete with the playing court.
The first of those three was played Wednesday night and the visiting Christiansburg Blue Demons might have thought Duke itself was the opponent.
Rolling out to a commanding 52-30 halftime lead, the Knights kept the pedal down on its way to a convincing 83-53 win over a talented Christiansburg squad that came to Southwest County with a 9-2 record.
The small court atmosphere played well for the Knights, who used balanced scoring and a swarming defense to stay perfect with their tenth straight win.
“Cave Spring Middle is like a second home to our guys,” Knights head coach Jacob Gruse noted after the game. “They love playing there and love how small it is.”
Christiansburg came out firing, hitting three times from behind-the-arc to start the game, but Cave Spring was up to the challenge, hitting three of their own to entertain the crowd. Adding a late surge, the Knights led 28-19 after the first 8 minutes. Cave Spring picked up the pressure on the defensive end, and when the Demons looked to stop the Cave Spring outside shooting, the Knights found success going inside that sent the teams to the halftime break with Cave Spring up by 22.
“Our guys were focused and had a balanced attack tonight,” Gruse added. “They shared the ball really well and we had a number of players step up.”
The Knights outscored Christiansburg 16-7 in the third quarter to comfortably lead by 31 heading to the final frame, with the only mystery the final margin. Cave Spring played all 13 of its players, with 10 finding the scorebook. Junior Reed Pendleton had a game-high 15 points for the Knights, including 2 of Cave Spring’s nine 3-pointers. Seniors Parker Huffman and Adnan Jasarevic followed closely, with 14 and 13 points, respectfully. Jasarevic had 3 hits from long range. Using a fast-paced inside-out ball rotation, four other Knights scored seven or eight points, including Lucas Duncan and Matt Cagle with seven, and Jalen Buster
and Charlie Urgo with eight each.
Christiansburg was led by Aiden Proudfoot’s 13 points, including 3 of the Blue Demons’ seven hits from behind-the-arc.
Cave Spring puts its perfect record on the line Saturday at 12 noon, when it takes on county rival Hidden Valley in the Lea’s Winter Classic at the Berglund Center, where Cave Spring takes on the role of playing its home court River Ridge matchup with the Titans.
Bill Turner