Backcourt validation

The Culpeper County High School boys basketball team might be a tough one to figure out.

The Blue Devils are coming off a winless season in 2008-09, but the team was in position to win several of those games, particularly in the second half of the season. With Culpeper moving out of the competitive Group AAA Cedar Run District and into the Group AA Battlefield District, winning games should be quite a bit easier.

The key for Culpeper though, will be taking advantage of an experienced backcourt and minimizing the inexperience underneath the basket.

“We’re going to have moments where we go on runs and moments where we make mistakes,” third-year Culpeper coach James Thompson said. “But I think you are going to see progress every game. I don’t think we’ll be going into each game overmatched like we did a lot of the time last year. The athleticism at Osbourn and Battlefield and those schools was great throughout the school’s population.”

Senior Cortez Rollins will likely start at guard along with sophomore Josh Majors and junior Bobby Zajkowski. That backcourt trio led the Blue Devils last season with Majors developing into a reliable scorer as the season went along.

With a guard-heavy lineup, Culpeper plans to play an up-tempo style to help limit what opposing big men are able to accomplish.

“We got a lot of new players and we are a little bit shorter that last year, but we are a faster team,” Rollins said. “We’ll full-court press and be a run-and-gun team. Our big guys are pretty fast too, so maybe we lack a little size, but we are in good condition to get up and down the floor.”

The Devils don’t get to start off with an easy game. Culpeper plays host to Fauquier, which won 22 games last season, tonight at 7 p.m.

The Falcons won’t have last year’s star center Jerrelle Benimon, now a freshman for the Georgetown Hoyas, but they should still provide a challenge underneath the basket for Culpeper, which expected to have all-district forward Larry Ralph returning this season before Ralph transferred to Battlefield.

Now the Blue Devils will look to Brian Thompson, brothers Devonte and Dontay Deans as well as Richard Carpenter to step up in the post.

“The middle is going to hurt us right now without Larry,” Thompson said. “We saw that in our scrimmage. We’re not that tall. Our lineup could change depending on the matchups, whether we need to put height on the other team’s height.”

CCHS Roster
40. Richard Carpenter
32. Devonte Deans
33. Dontay Deans
21. Jason Haskins-Holley
25. Enaam Karim
11. Josh Majors
24. Cortez Rollins
50. Connor Shaughnessy
23. Justin Smith
30. Brian Thompson
44. Andrey White
12. Justin Williams
34. Nick Zajkowski
10. Bobby Zajkowski

CCHS Schedule
Dec. 2 vs. Fauquier
Dec. 8 at Liberty
Dec. 11at Caroline
Dec. 14 at Orange
Dec. 15 vs. James Monroe
Dec. 18 at King George
Dec. 21 at Fauquier
Dec. 28 at W. Albemarle (tourney)
Dec. 29 at Charlottesville tourney
Dec. 30 at Charlottesville tourney
Jan. 5 vs. Spotsylvania
Jan. 8 at Courtland
Jan. 12 vs. Eastern View
Jan. 15 vs. Chancellor
Jan. 22 vs. Caroline
Jan. 25 vs. Orange
Jan. 26 at James Monroe
Jan. 29 vs. King George
Feb. 2 at Spotsylvania
Feb. 5 vs. Courtland
Feb. 9 at Eastern View
Feb. 12 at Chancellor