A NOVA player goes in for a layup in 77-60 win versus Germanna CC on February 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

By: Arch Scurlock
Sports Columnist

Whereas the Northern Virginia Community College women’s team rolled to lopsided wins in the Virginia Community College System tournament, the men’s team was engaged in two frenetic contests. It was a battle between the top two men’s teams in the VCCS final on March 4 in Chesapeake, both with 10-1 VCCS records during the regular season. Southside Virginia Community College of Alberta and NOVA had split two games previously, but in this title game Southside overcame an 80-79 NOVA lead with 51 seconds to go and won the championship 85-83.

In the first game of the last three regular season games leading up to the tournament, NOVA bested the Germanna Community College team at Annandale on Feb. 23, winning 77-60. NOVA opened up a 41-20 halftime lead and led by as many as 30 in the second half, then coasted to the win. Chris Jones led NOVA in scoring with 19, followed by Jason Holland with 15 and Steve Pierre with 14. NOVA demonstrated their advantage in offensive strength close to the basket by only needing to make 2-point baskets, and Germanna really had only one player who could combat this strength. Germanna had problems penetrating the NOVA inside presence, and so it turned to 3-point baskets, making 10 of them.

NOVA next played another VCCS foe, Thomas Nelson Community College, at Flint Hill High School in Oakton and came away with an 83-78 win on Feb. 25.

The next day, NOVA traveled to Lawrenceville to take on Southside. NOVA had taken the first game between the two in Annandale by 84-77, and that loss was still the only loss Southside had suffered in the VCCS.

Chris Jones goes for fast-break basket with NOVA's Duncan Jones (#23) trailing in 77-60 win over Germanna CC on February 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

In contrast with that first game, Southside exhibited a much stronger defense close to the basket, partly due to the addition of a player who was not present in the previous game.

Southside led most of the first half and had a lead of as much as 10 with 3.5 minutes to go, but NOVA ended the half only down by 4, 48-44. With their close-in offensive game yielding few baskets, NOVA relied on 3-pointers in the half, making seven of them.

In the second half, NOVA tried attacking the basket more with limited success. Chris Jones’ drives to the basket led to his being stripped several times with the loss of the ball to Southside, and he made none of the layups he was able to put up. He only made one 2-point basket in the second half after making three 3-pointers in the first half. Close-in baskets by the other players were still hard to come by, though they received a number of foul shots, and only strong shooting by Simon Kilday kept NOVA in the game, as he scored 17 points in the second half, mostly on intermediate shots. NOVA had no 3-pointers in the second half.

Southside went out to leads as much as 19 points in the second half over the frustrated NOVA team, but NOVA was able to cut the lead to 6 momentarily at 78-72 with 5.5 minutes to go and again at 89-83 with about 30 seconds left, but that was as close as they could come as they lost 92-83.

Southside’s D’Antre Person was a big problem for NOVA. In the first half he had 19 points and in the second half 14, even though he only made 6 of 11 free throws. When he

NOVA's Steve Pierre soars in putting up shot with NOVA's Duncan Jones (#23) trailing and NOVA's Simon Kilday (#31) to the right in 77-60 win over Germanna CC on February 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

was double-teamed on his drives to the basket in the second half, he would often find a teammate alone near the basket with a pass that ended in an easy Southside layup.

A drained and tired Coach Mike Fitzmaurice could only exclaim after the game, “There goes our winning streak.” The loss did end an almost two year undefeated stretch for NOVA in VCCS games. Southside had tied NOVA for the #1 seed position in the upcoming VCCS tournament.

In the VCCS semi-final game on March 3, NOVA played Tidewater Community College of Chesapeake. It turned out that the game followed the same pattern as their previous two games, to Tidewater’s dismay. NOVA led Tidewater in each of the second halves, but Tidewater rallied to near NOVA late in the period on a barrage of 3-pointers, before NOVA pulled out the victory.

This game saw NOVA take a 42-32 halftime lead. In the second half, NOVA kept its lead for most of the half and led by 9 at 100-91 with 1:40 to go. That was Tidewater’s cue for action. Tidewater’s Reginald Smith, who had been throwing up errant 3-pointers the whole game, finally made one at 1:28 to cut the NOVA lead to 100-94. After a NOVA foul shot, he hit another one at 1:10 to cut the lead to 101-97. They were his only two baskets of the game. NOVA, which was missing lots of foul shots in the last 1.5 minutes of the game, finally had Pierre and then Chris Jones make a foul shot to raise its lead to 103-97 with 34.7 seconds to go.

Tidewater made a 2-pointer and after NOVA’s Holland missed two more free throws, making it four in a row, Tidewater’s Malcolm Coleman threw in a miracle 3-pointer to close it to 103-102 at the 10 second mark, his only basket of the game. After a NOVA free throw at 8.1 seconds, Tidewater inbounded and found a lone Tidewater player under the basket with a long pass. His hurried, close shot bounced off the backboard and past the basket, a ‘gimme’ basket that would have tied the score.

NOVA's Duncan Jones (#23) goes up for a fast-break dunk with NOVA's Chris Jones (#5) trailing in a 77-60 victory over Germanna Community College on Feb. 23 at Annandale. Photo by Kama Storie

The player went down in the ensuing melee, and, probably from exasperation from the missed shot, a technical foul was called on Southside at 1.7 seconds. NOVA’s Holland finally made the two free throws from the technical to make it 106-102 and a hurried missed Tidewater shot was followed by another NOVA free throw as NOVA escaped to the championship game with a 107-102 win.

NOVA had made only 7 of 17 foul shots in the last 1:23 to help keep Tidewater in the game. Duncan Jones led NOVA with 25 points, followed by Chris Jones’ 20. The two teams had scored 135 points between them in the second half, a monumental effort.

Coming into the tournament, NOVA had two goals: to better defend Southside guard Person, and to penetrate the strong inner Southside defense. NOVA did better in both areas, but were still not quite able to win.

NOVA took an early 10-6 lead after 5 minutes, but then Southside seemed to make every long distance shot as they took a 27-16 lead with just under nine minutes to go. Southside still led by 11 at 37-26 with 2.5 minutes to go, but NOVA rallied to score 11 straight points. Kilday scored 6 and Pierre made a 2-point basket with 3.0 seconds to go to tie the game 37-37 at the half.

There was one glaring statistic at halftime: high-scoring Duncan Jones had zero points. At the half he was seen talking to someone next to the court who seemed to be giving him some pointers for the second half.

NOVA was glad to start the second half finally even, but it did not last long, as they quickly fell behind by 15 points after only seven minutes of the second half at 56-41. No timeout pep talk was necessary, however, as NOVA went on a 23-8 tear to tie the score at 64-64 with 8 minutes to go. Kilday led a further 10-3 NOVA surge with 7 points as NOVA took a 7-point lead with five minutes left at 74-67.

NOVA could not rest, however, as three minutes later Southside had tied the score at 78-78 with 2:09 left. A basket by Chris Jones gave NOVA the lead at 80-79 with 51 seconds remaining. Southside’s Javon Lockett then broke free momentarily under the basket on their possession, took the quick pass, made a layup at 39.1 seconds, and was fouled. He made the foul shot to give Southside the lead at 82-80.

NOVA worked the ball looking for a good shot, and Chris Jones was fouled with 23.3 seconds to go. It looked like NOVA would have a possible way to tie the score, but crucially it turned out that it was only Southside’s sixth foul of the half, so there were no foul shots awarded. NOVA inbounded the ball. Two Southside defenders batted out a subsequent bounce pass into Pierre near the basket, and Southside recovered the ball.

They quickly took the ball down the court and Person made a layup with 10 seconds to go for an 84-80 Southside lead. NOVA quickly took the ball up court and Duncan Jones drilled a desperation 3-pointer to cut the lead to 84-83 with 4 seconds to go.

NOVA had to foul quickly and did so at 2.4 seconds, Southside making one of two free throws for an 85-83 lead. After a timeout, NOVA was unable to inbound the pass and so took a second timeout. This time a long pass to Duncan Jones connected, but his long 3-pointer went astray as the buzzer sounded giving Southside the hard-fought title, their third in four years, and a final 17-5 record.

NOVA was able to defense Person better, especially during the first half as starter Gordon Jones and Nate Queen and Okezie Erondu came off the bench to limit him to 5 points. However, despite close guarding again in the second half, Person broke loose for 18 points in the second half, including three 3-pointers. He especially rose to the occasion in the final 4 minutes, scoring 10 points, including the 3 pointer that tied the score at 78-78. With his 26 points in the Southside semifinal game, Person was named Tournament MVP.

Lockett was an unexpected force for Southside, scoring 19, mostly close to the basket. He had only scored 2 points in the previous game between the two teams.

For NOVA, Pierre scored a game-high 26 points, including seven of eight free throws, while Kilday had 22, including four 3-pointers. Coincidentally, they were NOVA’s representatives on the all tournament team. Duncan Jones obviously got some good halftime advice, as he scored 11 points in the second half, the only other NOVA player in double figures.

After the game, Coach Fitzmaurice related, “They played hard. The other team was just better today…We had a 6-point lead the last several minutes. The guy came back with some unbelievable long 3-point shots that brought them back in the game.”

Thus NOVA’s hopes for a second straight championship had ended. This year was NOVA’s last chance for a VCCS championship, since next year it will compete in an NJCAA tournament. NOVA’s record in the VCCS ended at 11-2 and 15-12 overall. This year’s team had come close to duplicating last year’s superb achievement of winning the VCCS tournament.

By: Arch Scurlock

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