Bishops, Bulldogs take easy first-round wins

Virginia Episcopal School and Lynchburg Christian Academy rolled to easy victories Thursday night in the first round of the second annual Holiday Basketball Tournament.

The Bishops utilized their height to defeat Timberlake Christian School, 64-49, while LCA built up a 36-13 halftime lead and coasted to a 75-40 win over Holy Cross.

The Bulldogs will meet VES in tonight's final at LCA, while Timberlake and Holy Cross will meet in the 6:30 consolation game. The finals will start about 20 minutes after the consolation.

Although guilty of numerous turnovers, LCA, 5-2, could do little else wrong as they dominated the play against Holy Cross, 0-5. Troy Hartless scored 18 points for LCA, while Jason Webster had 11. Greg Terrill had 14 for Holy Cross despite hitting only 2 of 10 free throws.

In the opener, the Bishops' defensive emphasis was geared to stopping Joe Guill and Greg Pulliam. While David and John Hunter did commendable jobs in checking the two, they were unable to stop them completely.

Pulliam scored 24 points and Guill 13.

TCS coach Rodney Kane said Timberlake, 3-4, did not play with the intensity that he would have liked and that VES' height advantage was too much to overcome.

VES coach Bob Leake agreed that height played a major roll in the victory, but another factor was the Bishops' ability to get the ball inside to Brian Hicks, a 6-foot-6 senior, who scored 25 points. Stewart Langley contributed 16 points to the win.

The win enabled the Bishops to even their season record at 2-2.

By Calvin Porter, Staff writer
The News & Advance