Gar-Field boys coach to play former team in semifinals

The last time the Gar-Field and William Fleming boys basketball programs faced each other in a region game, Andy Gray was in his fifth year as a member of the Colonels’ coaching staff.

William Fleming won the region semifinal contest and following that year, Gray took over the Indians’ program where he has remained for 16 years. Now the teams play one another with a state tournament berth on the line tonight in Dale City.

Gray remembers the fleeting time he spent in Roanoke under Burrall Paye fondly, appreciating the learning process he experienced there.

“It was a great apprenticeship for me,” Gray said. “I moved back to Roanoke (after playing at Hampden-Sydney), and I had gone to high school with Burrall’s son, Patrick and we were good friends. Pat ... called me in Farmville and told me his dad had two assistant coaching openings.

“I went to Fleming and I was there for five years and being with him, it was just a fabulous experience,” Gray said.

Paye is gone from William Fleming and while Gray won’t face his coaching mentor tonight, he is familiar with the current staff of head coach Mickey Hardy and assistant Marshall Ashford. The Colonels have long held a successful tradition carried on from Paye to Hardy and this year is no different.

“They’ve got a great program there. Heck, they won a AA state championship two years ago,” Gray said of Fleming’s 2007 title.

The Indians (17-9) lost 47-42 to the Colonels (21-4) in a December tournament at the Salem Civic Center, but the environment will be different this time around. Gar-Field, as the No. 1 seed in the top region bracket, hosts William Fleming, perhaps enough of an advantage to overcome the duo of Division I prospects, Troy Daniels and Jamelle Hagins.

“We hope there’s some travel fatigue,” Gray said, “but the Daniels kid is an ACC recruit, a 6-foot-5 guard who shoots it from everywhere. The Haggins kid is fabulous inside, 6-7 and a highly sought after mid-major prospect.”

Daniels has offers from Marquette as well as Gonzaga among others after starting as a sophomore on the state title team. This year he averaged 17.0 points a game and hit 40 percent of his 3-point attempts for the Colonels.

Hagins, who has been offered by Radford and Delaware, scored 12.0 ppg and 9.5 rebounds a night this year.

In addition to a deep roster with height, Gray knows things may be stacked against his squad in this matchup.

“It’s a tall order, but once you advance to this point — actually, once you get to the end of district play — there are no flunkies left,” he said. “There are only good teams and teams like us that have kind of overachieved, and you’re just glad to be playing.”

On the Indians’ side is senior guard Kwasi Amponsah, who led the area in scoring with more than 21.0 ppg. Add in Jeremiah Johnson’s contributions in the paint and plenty of others surrounding them and Gar-Field is far from totally overmatched.

“Jeremiah’s a good player, a good junior and Kwasi’s a very, very good guard,” Gray said. “But it’s a lot like what we saw dealing with Hylton and some of the other teams we played with. The physicality of it all is a big factor. We were able to overcome it with Battlefield, but it’s difficult to do. A lot of things have to go well to overcome that obstacle.

“Our kids are going to have to rely on the things that have gotten us here,” Gray added. “We have to play together, we’ll have to defend collectively, hustle and scrap and claw and fight our way to stay afloat.”