Floyd County High School’s scrappy Buffaloes basketball team was in striking distance of the James River Knights at halftime of the Region 2C semi-finals at Roanoke College Thursday night.

That hope disappeared in the third quarter, with the Knights outscoring the Buffaloes 31-7, effectively putting away a game where the clock continued to run without interruption because of the size of the lead.

“We put ourselves in the spot where we wanted to be at halftime, but we just couldn’t sustain it in the second half,” Floyd coach Brian Harman told The Roanoke Times after the game.

The Knights’ crushing defense held normal high-scoring Kaiden Swortzel to just 11 points, with Dylan Bond leading the tally with 12. The missed scoring shots helped explain why the final score was 74-40 in the Knights’ win that sends them to the state finals, win or lose against Radford in the regional final Saturday night.

More details and photos in next week’s Floyd Press on the season enders for both the Buffaloes and Lady Buffaloes in Salem this week.