Dan River grinds out victory over home-standing Tunstall

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DRY FORK — Fabian Robertson knew heading into Tuesday night’s road game at Tunstall that he was going to get his first varsity start. Dan River’s 6-foot-3 sophomore forward still had some nerves on the first jump ball, but those soon diminished with a quick basket.

Robertson scored the team’s first basket 7 seconds into the game and recorded team highs of 12 points and seven rebounds, leading Dan River to a slow, grind-it-out 51-36 victory over Tunstall on Tuesday night in the second meeting between the two Pittsylvania County schools this season.

“It just seems like every year we’ve played here, it’s an absolute grind,” Dan River coach Jacob Gruse said. “It’s like we can never get any continuity on offense, defensively it seems like we’re a step behind. You look at Friday night (in a 74-57 win at Chatham), we’re flying around the floor. Tunstall does play a different style of basketball and they did a good job of dictating the pace.”

Robertson led five of Dan River’s first-year varsity players in the first half when they combined to score 18 of the team’s 23 points. Robertson scored eight of those points and Clinton Culley added four.

Dan River (4-1) didn’t secure the victory until late in the third quarter when Kevin Eldridge scored four of his nine points. The senior forward’s one-handed dunk off a steal near midcourt with less than 2 minutes left brought the Dan River contingent to its feet and his layup with 1 second left put the Wildcats up 35-28 heading into the final quarter.

That flurry came after Tunstall (2-5) closed the gap to 29-27 with 3:09 left in the third. Torrey White put the Wildcats up by four with an offensive put back and Eldridge provided his slam to swing the momentum to Dan River’s side.

“We had a chance,” Tunstall guard Shawn Ferrell said. “It’s like the first game, we just couldn’t box out. That’s the one thing the coaches have been telling us — to box out. They get a lot of offensive boards and score baskets off it.”

Tunstall kept things close in the fourth quarter, cutting the deficit to 41-33 on a Ferrell 3-pointer, but the Wildcats used a 2-3 zone to contain the Trojans’ offense and closed the contest on a 10-3 burst with scoring from five different players.

“I thought the tempo changed a little bit, but it had to change,” Tunstall coach Eddy Lloyd said of the final quarter. “The margin was getting enough to where we had to go ahead and try to play a little bit quicker tempo than what we had been playing. It looks like to me it’s a continual process of us. Looks like we kind of (run) out of gas a little bit and they had a couple of nice drives to the basket, got some rebounds and some points there and they were able to open it up. You look at the final margin — 15 points — it certainly wasn’t that type of ball game.”

A trio of Dan River players scored six points — Trey Edmunds, Reggie Stone and Culley — and Edmunds added six rebounds. Raymond Hairston led the Wildcats with three assists.

Ferrell paced the Trojans with 11 points — 10 coming in the second half. Shawn Clowers scored nine points and Ben Cobbs added six points on two 3-pointers.

The Trojans’ methodical offense finally got into gear midway through the first quarter after Dan River jumped out to a 5-0 lead. Five different Tunstall players scored in the quarter, with Cobbs draining a 3-pointer with 1.5 seconds left to give the Trojans a 10-7 lead after the first period.

Tunstall held Dan River to one field goal in the final 5:52 of the first quarter, forcing turnovers and getting quality looks at the basket.

“We have to play an almost near-perfect game because of our size,” Lloyd said. “It’s very important for us to do that.”

After Tunstall’s Brandon Gore converted a three-point play to give the Trojans a 16-13 lead with 4:18 left in the second quarter, Dan River scored 10 of the next 12 points — four of those points on offensive rebounds and six from the first-year varsity players — to take a 23-18 lead into the locker room.

“I just felt like that second five we threw into the game just really gave us a spark we needed tonight,” Gruse said. “We just came out very flat — applaud Tunstall for their effort tonight — but we came out flat. We got seven turnovers in the first quarter, six in the second — 13 at halftime. You’re not going to beat a lot of basketball teams or even be ahead at halftime.”

Dan River 51, Tunstall 36
DAN RIVER (4-1)
Jones 1 2-2 4, Culley 3 0-1 6, Stone 2 2-2 6, Hairston 0 0-0 0, Eldridge 3 3-6 9, Edmunds 3 0-0 6, White 2 0-0 4, Fuller 1 0-0 2, Robertson 5 2-2 12, Bowman 1 0-0 2. Totals 21 9-13 51.
TUNSTALL (2-5)
Hendrix 0 0-0 0, Huffman 1 1-1 3, Gore 2 1-1 5, Clowers 2 5-6 9, Cobbs 2 0-0 6, Ferrell 3 3-6 11, Thomas 0 2-4 2, Jackson 0 0-0 0, Woodard 0 0-0 0, Holdness 0 0-0 0. Totals 10 12-18 36.
Dan River 7 16 12 16 - 51
Tunstall 10 8 10 8 - 36
3-point goals: Tunstall 4 (Cobbs 2, Ferrell 2). Fouled out: None.
JV score: Tunstall 60-27. Dan River (3-3): Michael Williams 9. Tunstall (6-1): Veshawn Parrish 19.