By LLOYD COMBS
for the Daily Telegraph
RICHLANDS, Va. — Richlands didn’t execute as well as it wanted to, but it executed well when it needed to.
Scottie Ball and Luke Phillips were responsible for much of that execution in a 70-62 win over Grundy in Southern Empire Conference play Monday night at Richlands Middle School.
The Blue Tornado made it a clean sweep for the night.
The Lady Blues raced past Grundy, 81-48 in Monday’s opener.
Ball poured in a game-high 26 points and Phillips scored 17 of his 21 points in the second half as the Richlands boys avenged a loss at Grundy six days earlier with the come-from-behind win.
More importantly the Blues (3-9) ended a four-game losing streak, thanks to the all-around floor game of Ball, who added 12 rebounds for a double-double, and Phillips, who scored every point of a 7-0 run that turned a 35-27 Grundy lead into a one-point game midway through the third quarter.
Phillips drained a 3-pointer that tied the score at 41-41 near the end of the period and another trey that gave the Blues the lead for good, 47-44 early in the fourth period.
“Scottie Ball got to the rim time after time, he’s got such great body control. He can finish well,” said Richlands coach Jody Fuller. “And Luke got hot and when he gets hot he can do some damage.”
Charles “Bub” McCoy overcame early foul trouble to finish with a double-double of 21 points and 13 rebounds to go with six assists for Grundy, which defeated Richlands by one point six days earlier.
“I think the biggest difference in the ball game this time was our inability to execute our halfcourt offense, which I’ve been preaching about the last five or six games,” Grundy coach Brian Moore said. “Until we get better at that, it’s going to come back to bite us.
“That was the problem tonight, we just weren’t able to execute any of our offense in the halfcourt. It hurt us.”
The Blues’ second-half spurt and another key run to get within 28-27 late in the first half gives Fuller hope that his young team is starting to come around.
“We ran our offense a little better,” he said. “We’re just not chugging along and clicking the way we want to be, but we’re taking baby steps.
“We played a little better defensively, but we jumped the ball a little bit we weren’t getting rotation and we were leaving people wide open. But, we scratched and we won. Our biggest opponent right now is inside our own head, but we ended our losing streak.”
Cody Fuller scored 11 points for Richlands. Christian Jackson (11 points), Jordan McCoy (11) and Ethan Duty (10) all scored in double figures for Grundy (8-5).

Boys game
GRUNDY
Ethan Duty 10, Charles McCoy 21, Dillion Wolford 3, Jordan McCoy 11, Christian Jackson 11, Baylen Dillow 6.
RICHLANDS (3-9)
Ethan Ratliff 1, Cody Fuller 11, Luke Phillips 21, Scotty Ball 26, Landon Lowe 5, Grant Herndon 3, Austin Atkinson 3.
Grundy.......................12 16 13 21 — 62
Richlands....................9 18 17 26 — 70
3-point goals — G (J. McCoy 3, Jackson 1); RHS (Fuller 3, Phillips 2, Herndon 1, Atkinson 1).