Buckingham County High School’s varsity boys basketball team defeated visiting Nottoway High School 60-50 on Friday night, Jan. 10, pushing the Knights’ undefeated record to 11-0 on the season, including a 6-0 mark in the James River District (JRD).

“I’m very proud of this team and how we’ve played thus far,” Knights Head Coach Taylor Boyers said. “We still have room for improvement, and that’s what we’re going to continue to strive for.”

Evaluating his team’s play against the Cougars, he said, “We got off to a really good start. We came out with intensity. Defensively, we played pretty well.”

Leading the Knights in Friday’s game was junior forward Gerry “Tae” Toney with 17 points. Sophomore guard Damorrious Holman and senior center James DeVore added nine points apiece.

Boyers pointed to a key reason for his team’s outstanding start when he noted that the Knights are a defensive-minded team.

“Our defense leads to a lot of our offense for us,” he said. “We talk about it a lot that there are going to be games where we don’t shoot the ball well. We’re going to go on the road and not play well offensively all the time, but we can always play defense, we can always give effort. We talk about (how) defense always travels. We hang our hat on that, and we take pride in our defense.”

There are a variety of players in the lineup for Buckingham that have helped engineer the 11-0 start, and the coach took a few moments to highlight several of them.

“Tae does so much for this team, offensively, defensively,” Boyers said. “His rebounding and his ability to get to the basket has been a key for us, and then Amari Toney, the way he’s able to stretch the floor for us on offense and the way he leads for us. Damorrious Holman has been a guy who’s played really well for us. As a sophomore starting at point guard, he’s getting better and better each game, and you can see him getting more confident. He’s shot the ball pretty well this year, but he’s done a good job for us at the point guard (position). And then James DeVore, I’ll highlight him. He’s been huge for us inside with his size and being able to be a rim protector and rebound. He changes some things inside for us.”

Looking at the road ahead, the coach said, “We have a lot of tough games left on our schedule. Our main focus right now is to keep working and getting better and take it one game at a time.”

On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the Knights hosted Goochland High School (6-1, 4-0 JRD), and they host Central Lunenburg High School on Friday, Jan. 17, at 7 p.m.