By Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Senior point guard Quinton Morton-Robertson was not coming back from Richmond without the Class 2 state trophy. Saturday, he led Radford to the championship with a 74-50 win over East Rockingham.
“Q” as Morton-Robertson is commonly known scored 83 points in the semis and state title tilt, surpassing 2,000 points as a Radford Bobcat.
His coach, Rick Cormany, said after his semi-final performance, he is a heck of a player and was glad he was a Bobcat. Saturday, he used words like “incredible” in summing up his point guard’s play.
His performance on Saturday might have been Morton-Robertson’s swan song. The Radford University-signee has heard the critics that he is too small at 5-8, but he stood in the land of giants shooting the lights out of the basket. He saved one of his best one-act plays for the final curtain, hitting seven 3-pointers and finishing almost perfect at the charity stripe, scoring 41 points in the win.
East Rockingham used a combination of a box-in-one and even a triangle-in-two, but Morton-Robertson shot over, dribbled through and simply around the larger team.
P.J. Prioleau added 11 points for the Bobcats who struggled early but dictated the pace of the game by the second quarter, building up a 43-20 halftime lead and cruising the rest of the way.
Radford completes an undefeated season at 30-0 with a win this year over Class 3 state champion, Northside.
Morton-Robertson finished the game 16-of-19 from the foul line and nine of 15 from the field. He has been a part of three state championships and will hold several state tournament scoring highs that will be tough to catch. Now, he sets his sights on a new playground just down the road at the Dedmon Center as he and teammate, Miles Jones, will join Jones’ father at Radford University.