We’d like to set the record straight.

Last week, in the most recent article on this year’s Mathews High School boys’ basketball team playing in the VHSL quarterfinals, we said that the last time a Blue Devil team had made it all the way to the state tournament was 1978. Turns out, that’s not so.

Michael Montague, an observant reader and member of that ’78 squad, called to let us know that the Devils had also made it to the VHSL state tournament two years later, in 1980.

Like the 1978 team, the 1980 squad was coached by John Lanford and had also won the Region A title to earn its state berth. The ’80 team lost in the state semifinals to the Woodstock Falcons, 67-59. The 1978 squad lost its state semifinal game to James River High, 62-53. Both of those games were held at University Hall in Charlottesville.

The closest Mathews High School ever came to a state title in boys’ basketball was 1959, when the team coached by Allen Moughon made it al...