After suffering a lopsided loss in their previous game against Clarke County, the George Mason High School boys varsity basketball team took out a little bit of pent-up frustration in their return to the court. The vengeance came at the expense of the Rappahannock Panthers who bore the brunt of Mason’s wrath to the tune of a 69-42 pasting last Thursday night at Mustang Gym.

Josh Brew was a marksman from the perimeter for the Mustangs, who rode the junior’s four first-half three-pointers to a 36-17 advantage at the break.

“Brew was fantastic,” Mason Head Coach Chris Capannola said. “He can shoot it. He’s streaky, but when he’s on fire he wants the ball.”

At one point in the second quarter, Brew scored eight consecutive points for Mason in the span of about 45 seconds.

Mason leapt out of the gates. After the Panthers scored the game’s first two points, the Mustangs retaliated by scoring 13 unanswered points to build a comfortable lead. The Panthers closed the gap to 15-8 by the first quarter’s end, but with their starters back on the floor to start the second quarter, the Mustangs scored the next 11 points to remove all doubt from the outcome.

The breezy victory was exactly what the doctor ordered after the hard-to-swallow loss to rival Clarke County.

“We had a good practice, a loose practice [on Wednesday] and we got the taste out of our mouths,” Capannola said.

Mason squared off Wednesday night against the Strasburg Rams after the game was postponed from Tuesday night due to the severe ice storm that descended on the D.C. region. The outcome could provide some clarity to a murky postseason picture that could involve as many as four teams — Mason, Clarke, Manassas Park and Madison County — tied for first place in the Bull Run District. Such a scenario would be decided by a mini-playoff with the winner obtaining the No. 1 seed in the district tournament, a first-round bye and a berth in the upcoming Region B Tournament.