There are very few 7-footers on the rosters of Division III basketball teams and even fewer that show the potential to play professionally. In the championship game of the R-MC Coaches Classic, the host Yellow Jackets faced both in the presence of Farmingdale State junior forward AJ Matthews. Matthews came into the contest averaging 23 points and 14.5 rebounds per game and with his Chris Bosh-like build he had the talent to dominate any contest.

  “The Matthews kid is an All-American quality player,” said R-MC head coach Nathan Davis. “He’s a potential pro. He’s a nightmare matchup.”

  But Randolph-Macon’s defense, playing no one over 6-7, stepped up to neutralize Matthews in the second half and allow the Yellow Jackets to claim the championship 83-75.

  “I thought that you’ve got to give our guys a lot of credit for executing our game plan to the best of their abilities and making it tough for (Matthews) to get points,” Davis said.

  Two of those 6-7 players making it tough on Matthews were local products Dylan Cole, a junior out of Hanover and Akeem Holmes, a freshman from King William.

  Though he started the season opener, Cole’s production has increased of late as his tendency of foul has fallen off. “I feel like since I’ve stopped fouling, playing more and being in the game more has really done more for me,” Cole said.

  In R-MC’s 84-75 tournament opening victory over Baruch, Cole scored a career high 10 points while pulling down nine rebounds. Against the much taller Matthews, Cole’s production did not show up on the stat sheet but he played a vital role on defense.

  For Davis, Cole’s improvement has given the Yellow Jackets a boost. “The big thing for us and the reason we’ve looked better over the last two days is because it’s two days where he didn’t get into foul trouble,” Davis said. “He’s an inside presence. He’s a junior so he’s strong. He’s been around for two years so he understands what we’re trying to do and when he’s able to play it makes us a better team.”

  But even the improved Cole was no match for Matthews early as the 7-footer appeared to be on pace to score 40 while fouling out the entire Yellow Jacket roster. Cole picked up two quick fouls Matthews notched 13 points in the first seven minutes of play.

  “That’s what it was looking like for a little while but we did a good job of adjusting,” Davis said. “We ended up switching up and throwing some match-up at him because it seemed like when teams played zone they quit throwing it to him as much.”

  When sophomore forward Andre Simon joined Cole on the bench with two fouls, the task of stopping Matthews fell to Holmes, who had seen little playing time coming into the tournament.

  “Once I see the guys in front of me getting into foul trouble I automatically know I’ve got to step up because that means I’m coming in,” Holmes said. “I really didn’t want them to get into foul trouble because I felt nervous the whole time but I was fine after that. My team trusted me, I trusted them as well.”

  Holmes’ big-body presence began to neutralize Matthews’ effectiveness and limited him to three points over the final 13 minutes of the half.

  “He’s been playing really well in practice,” Cole said of Holmes. “He’s been coming along, just making progress every day.”

  Behind Matthews, the Rams ran out to an early 9-2 lead but R-MC answered with a 15-4 run of their own to take a 17-13 lead.

  A 7-0 run by Farmingdale gave the Rams a 20-17 lead but R-MC once again knotted the game at 24 on a pair of free throw from freshman Marcus Badger (11 points).

  The Rams then pulled out to their biggest lead of the game, 35-26, when Croskey fouled Dyshaun Flournoy (21 points) on a made 3-pointer with less than three minutes left in the half.

  Though the Yellow Jackets executed their offense well their shots simply would not fall from outside. R-MC finished 1-for-10 on threes in the half.

  “It gets real frustrating because you feel like you’re working really hard on offense, you’re going through rotations, you’re setting picks, you’re getting guys open and when the shot doesn’t fall automatically you get frustrated,” Holmes said. “But you just let that go out of your mind, go down and play defense and try to get another shot because at some point shots are going to fall. You don’t give up. You run down the court, get a stop and come back and try to do it all over again because they’re going to fall at some point.”

  Facing their biggest deficit and foul trouble across the board, Davis turned to little used freshman Evan Jackson. The forward out of Deep Run provided a spark scoring six points over the final 2:41 of the half to pull R-MC within two, 36-34, at the break.

  “He did a good job offensively of understanding what was going on and got us moving,” Davis said. “When he got in there we went from down 10 to down two at the half, which I thought was very important.”

  The Rams quickly widened the margin to six points opening the second half. But as R-MC began aggressively double and triple-teaming Matthews he became less effective and was limited to two points on 1-for-3 shooting over the final 20 minutes.

  Meanwhile, the Jackets’ shots started to fall from outside to go 6-of-12 from 3-point range in the second half.

  “If you’ve got good players and they understand what they’re doing and they’re taking the right shots they will go in eventually,” Davis said. “You’ve just got to stick with it.”

  On a drive to the basket, Simon dished off to Holmes for a thunderous dunk over Ibrahim Johnson to pull R-MC within two, 46-44. A layup from Trent Walker tied the game and back-to-back threes from Croskey (16 points) and Connor Sullivan gave the Yellow Jackets a 52-46 lead with 12:48 to play and they never trailed again.

  R-MC held a 71-63 lead with 6:05 to play when the Rams went on an 8-0 run to tie the contest with 2:53 remaining.

  But it was Cole who came to the rescue.

  Off a feed from Simon, Cole went strong to the basket to draw the fourth foul on Matthews. Cole stroked both free throws to put the Yellow Jackets back on top to stay. Thirty seconds later Cole took a feed from Giggetts (12 points) for a layup and a 75-71 lead with 1:28 remaining to help insure the win.

  Matthews finished the game with 18 points and 16 rebounds to earn the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player honors. Croskey and Adam Desgain (12 points) joined the Rams’ Josh Smith (21 points) and Flournoy on the All-Tournament team.

  R-MC returns to action on Wednesday, Jan. 4 when they host Randolph College. The game will mark a family faceoff as Yellow Jacket senior Adam Desgain will go toe-to-toe with his younger brother Zach Desgain, a freshman at Randolph. The contest will also mark the final trip to the Richmond area for Atlee product Cameron Colquitt who is a junior guard for the Wildcats.