WHITE HALL - North Greene captured a rival game Friday night over Southwestern 50-44 on Friday night at North Greene.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
Justin Bailey led Southwestern with a 24-point performance. Caleb Robinson had 7 points and Caden Heyen contributed 6 points for the Piasa Birds.
Josh Hopper had 16 points to pace the Spartans, while Justin Lawson had 16 points and Brett Whicker 4 points.
Southwestern head boys coach Jason Darr said: "We were down seven or eight in first quarter and pressured a little bit early on and got some decent looks and tied at 13.
“Holding them to 54 isn’t too bad,” he added. “We didn’t shoot very well. We thought we could speed them up a little bit offensively, but bottom line, we didn’t shoot very well. It is just the way it is; we have Caden, a guard at 6-3, then don’t have a kid over 6-foot. You have to play defense, we were tried at half at 20-20.”
North Greene Brett Berry said his team started hot, but as the game progressed Southwestern made a nice run at them, knotting the matchup at 20-20 at the half.
“We then got the big boys involved more,” he said. “Justin Lawson had a break-out game he and Josh Hopper dealt with things well inside. Southwestern’s Bailey is an outstanding scorer and was hard to contain. Brett Whicker did a great job of maintaining the game.”
North Greene jumped to a 13-4 lead at the end of one, but Southwestern fought back and outscored North Greene 16-7 in the second quarter. In quarter three of the see-saw battle, North Greene outscored Southwestern 18-9. Southwestern tallied 15 points to North Greene’s 12 points in the final frame for the score of 50-44 North Greene.
Darr said North Greene’s height advantage was the key factor in the game. He said the Piasa Birds have three big conference games coming up and one involves Roxana.
“If we win out in conference, we would win 20 games for the season, then we also want to win the regional,” he said. “We have 17 wins right now.”
Berry said things don’t get any easier for his Spartans as they face Triopia on Tuesday and West Central on Friday.
“We have a big week next week,” he said.
