Ashburn, Va. — From the opening “tip” to the final whistle, the night belonged to the Broad Run Spartans. Traveling into enemy territory against an athletic and physical Independence team, the Broad Run boys basketball team knew they had their work cut out from them—and the Spartans rose to the occasion. Broad Run senior guard Luke Schwartzbeck, junior guard Arnav Thornhill, and sophomore forward Matin Perdue all finished in double figures as the Spartans rolled past the Tigers, 64-40, on January 5 in Ashburn.
“You don’t have to worry about anybody taking away this or taking away that because it’s just next man up,” Broad Run head coach John Costello said. “The way we’re playing right now, it’s hard to stop us because we have seven guys who can bring it every night. It’s really fun to watch.”
The next man up mentality was evident throughout the night and it started with Schwartzbeck in the first quarter. The senior guard buried three threes from the corner to give Broad Run a 13-8 lead after the first frame.
From there, the Spartans defense took over. From just over 1:00 left in the first quarter to with less than 1:00 left in the second quarter, Broad Run held Independence completely scoreless. While the Broad Run defense didn’t force a lot of turnovers, they did speed up the game and force the Tigers to settle for bad looks.
“When you play that kind of defense, it takes care of your offense,” Costello said.
[adrotate banner=”42″]While holding Independence to just 2 second-quarter points, Broad Run started to share the scoring load as Thornhill and Perdue started to heat up and Schwartzbeck added another three ball.
The second half was a much more even battle, however, Thornhill and Perdue used their warm up in the second quarter to really get going in the second half with Thornhill adding 9 and Perdue 11 to their 15-point scoring efforts. Perdue also added 12 rebounds to round out his double double.
Having dug themselves into a first-half hole, the Tigers pressed full court for a healthy portion of the second half and the Spartans took advantage in transition, relying less on three pointers and more on an unselfish and efficient press break.
“Our chemistry it’s all we, we, we,” Costello said. “If you saw how we broke the press in the fourth quarter, the ball never touched the floor, everybody was being unselfish. It’s really nice to watch when a team has that kind of chemistry.”
While the Independence shooters never got into rhythm, junior guard Jack Gagen did knock down a couple of threes in the second half, where he scored all of his team-high 9 points. Senior center Griffin Patterson led the way on the glass with 11 boards.
The Tigers (0-0, 2-2) will look to bounce back when they travel to Dominion on January 7 while the Spartans (0-0, 5-0) will continue to take things one game at a time when they travel to Lightridge on the same night.
“The high school experience is so important for the kids,” Costello said. “We hit a buzzer beater last week, and I’m sure the kids would have run on the floor. I’m sorry they missed it, but it’s better than nothing. As a coach, I’m just glad we’re playing.”
Derrick Jerry captured 200+ photos at the game…
Broad Run Stats
| Broad Run | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Steals | Blocks | FT |
| Luke Schwartzbeck | 18 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2-for-2 |
| Matin Perdue | 15 | 12 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 3-for-4 |
| Arnav Thornhill | 15 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1-for-2 |
| Sean Thompson | 5 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1-for-2 |
| Tyler Smedley | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Kyle Love | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0-for-0 |
| Kyle Davis | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1-for-2 |
| Jake Busser | 1 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1-for-2 |
| Ahan Bhatia | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Elias Will | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Bharath Mahesh | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Jaylan Alvarez | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-2 |
| Totals | 64 | 45 | 12 | 4 | 6 | 9-for-16 |
Independence Stats
| Independence | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Steals | Blocks | FT |
| Jack Gagen | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1-for-2 |
| Wesley Williams | 8 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1-for-2 |
| Griffin Patterson | 5 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1-for-2 |
| Aiden Cibulsky | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Christopher Kaddissy | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2-for-2 |
| Daniel Kanazeh | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Madden Rogers | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Gabriel Coulthurst | 2 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Ryan Elansary | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Bradley Gagen | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Peyton Tortorici | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Darin Johnson | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-for-0 |
| Totals | 40 | 32 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 5-for-8 |