Powerful Park View storms past New Kent in conference final

New Kent's Blake Kelley (24) and Christian Hill-Sanders battle Park View's Noo Noo Patterson for a rebound.

Alan Chamberlain photo

Heading into his team’s battle with Park View-South Hill’s Dragons for the 3A Conference 25 tournament championship, New Kent coach Ronnie Cox anticipated the contest turning into a track meet. He was right.

The top-seeded and host Dragons ran, pressed, and shot their way past Cox’s Trojans, never allowing the third seeds to mount a serious threat or much less stay in last night’s (Friday) game. Park View opened with an 8-0 run and never looked back on the way to a 97-56 win.

“They’re very athletic and very unselfish,” Cox said about the opponents. “They shot it extremely well and they press extremely well. Hands down, they’re one of the best teams we’ve seen this year.”

The coach characterized his players as a group of weary road warriors after a long bus ride to Southampton Thursday night to defeat Lafayette in the tournament semifinals followed by the trip to Park View.

“We didn’t get home last night until after 11 p.m. They let the kids sleep in until 9 this morning, but we were four hours on the bus yesterday and 2½ hours to get here tonight,” he said.

“But that’s the nature of the beast,” he added. “This team is much better than we are and we still would have lost, but we were gassed.”

Park View exploded out of the blocks, forcing four straight Trojan turnovers and converting all into the game’s first eight points. New Kent’s Trey Cox got the visitors on the scoreboard, burying a trey three minutes in, but the Trojans mustered just three more points in the first quarter to trail 19-6.

New Kent settled down somewhat after Park View’s opening salvo, but could never overcome the earlier damage. The Dragons led 44-24 at halftime and 65-44 after three quarters before pouring in on in the final period.

Five Dragons scored in double figures. New Kent, meanwhile, was led by Micah Scorsone’s 12 points, nine each from Christian Block and Blake Kelley, and Jason Whitlow’s eight. Tommy Hale finished with six followed by Kevin Karaffa’s five, Cox’s three, and two apiece from Ryan Lugg and Christian Hill-Sanders.

The good news is the Trojans live to fight another day. By reaching the conference tourney final, they qualified for the region tournament and travel to John Marshall in Richmond for a Monday, 7 p.m. quarterfinal.

“We’re at John Marshall Monday, but we’re not going to practice [Saturday],” coach Cox said. “I’m going to give them some time off since we need the rest and we’ll just go into it Monday.

“It’s an honor to be in the tournament,” he said. “We’ve achieved as much as we’re capable of. This is the first team in New Kent history to reach a conference title game, and I’m real proud of these guys. There’s been a lot of positives this season.”