By JOHNNY WILSON
Sports Correspondent
BRISTOL, Va. - Be careful what you wish for, the old saying goes.
Always looking to force tempo with its full-court, man-to-man defense, Virginia High revved Grundy's motor Monday night and the Golden Wave left the Bearcat Den with a convincing 70-59 VHSL 2A West region quarterfinal boys basketball victory.
The win lifts Grundy into Wednesday night's regional semifinal at Richlands Middle School against last night's Dan River-Glenvar winner.
Virginia High, meanwhile, saw its glossy championship season lose some shine in the end, playing lack-lusterly in dropping its last two games.
"It's unfortunate," said VHS coach Barry Reed, whose team fashioned an 18-8 record. "This team ac-complished some really good things, but I sure hate to see it end like this.
"Give Grundy credit, though. They were aggressive and they played fast and they had us looking at their hind-ends all night. It was just one of those nights - we couldn't throw it in the ocean."
While Virginia High had one of its worst shooting nights of the season, hitting 23 of a whopping 80 shots for 28.7 percent, Grundy seemed to make the most of every offensive opportunity.
The Golden Wave (17-11) connected on 25-of-41 floor attempts for 61 percent - plenty good enough to overcome its 27 turnovers against the aggressive VHS defense.
Led by the 19-point game of talented 6-foot-3 Charles McCoy, five Wave players reached double figures as Grundy continually turned full-court Bearcat pressure into two-on-one fastbreaks.
"Coach told us not to run with them but we kind of just did our own thing in the second half, really," McCoy said. "We set up the offense when we had to, but mostly we ran the floor and pushed the ball - do-ing what we had to do to win."
In a game that was tied at the first-quarter stop and then again at halftime, Grundy grabbed the lead for good in the third quarter by hitting 10 of 15 shots, taking a 46-36 advantatage into the final period.
The Wave advantage ballooned to 52-36 less than two minutes into the fourth period.
"They shot layup after layup after layup," Reed said.
Ethan Duty was big with 16 points for Grundy, which got 11 points from Christian Jackson and 10 apiece from Baylan Dillow and Dylan Wolford.
"In a game like tonight you're not going to get much half-court offense," first-year Grundy coach Brian Moore said. "Virginia High is going to force tempo with all those athletes they've got stacked up over there and your kids are just going to have to play
"And that's what the kids did tonight. It's not my favorite style of basketball, but I'll take the W."
Moore singled out Duty and Wolford as X-factors.
"We had some kids like those two step up and get into the scoring column moreso than usual," Moore said. "Those are two four-point-a-game kids who made some big shots for us."
Virginia High, which got 16 points from Blake Rodgers and 15 from Trey Lang, only received a com-bined five points from senior stallwarts Toure Fudge, Kobe Clisby and Castavas Davis.
"These kids won the Clinch Mountain regular season and they won the Southwest District and they won at Tennessee High for the first time in 23 years," he said. "They did some really good things, but it wasn't to be tonight.
"Hopefully they learned another life lesson, and that's that it doesn't always go well for you at the office. But, it's how you respond to those adverse days that makes you who you are."

GRUNDY (17-11)

Duty 8 0-0 16, C.McCoy 5 7-12 19, J.McCoy 0 3-5 3, Jackson 4 3-3 11, B.Dillow 3 3-7 10, Wolford 5 0-0 10, E.Dillow 0 1-2 1. Totals 25 17-29 70.

VIRGINIA HIGH (n.a.)

Davis 1 0-0 2, Lang 5 3-6 15, Fudge 1 0-0 3, Garrett 3 0-0 8, Clisby 0 0-2 0, Houser 1 0-0 2, Bl.Rodgers 7 2-3 16, Br.Rodgers 2 2-4 7, Rippy 1 0-0 2, Taber 1 0-0 2, Delaney 1 0-0 2. Totals 23 7-15 59.

Grundy...................13 11 22 24 — 70

Virginia High..........13 11 12 23 — 59

3-point goals-Grundy 3 (C.McCoy 2, B.Dillow), VHS 6 (Lang 2, Garrett 2, Br.Rodgers, Fudge). Total fouls-Grundy 14, VHS 24. Fouled out-Fudge. Technical fouls-none.