RUTLEDGE – The South Greene girls jumped passing lanes, pressured the ball and continually made things tough on Claiborne as they earned a 57-35 win in the Pizza Plus Thanksgiving Classic at Grainger High School on Wednesday.
“I felt like in a morning game we really came out and got after it,” South Greene coach Stephen Gregg said. “It was a lot better than the last time we took the floor. We had a really good practice yesterday and a lot of that showed today. We forced 39 turnovers, and that tells me were playing hard. As a coach all I can ask is that they play hard.”
The Lady Rebels started fast and jumped out to a 12-3 lead in three minutes. Neveah Davis connected on a pair of three pointers and finished off a steal by Kortnei Bailey.
“We worked on spacing the floor on the offensive side both in the full court and the half court and it was good to see the girls looking for it early,” Gregg said.
Claiborne answered with an 11-0 run over the next three minutes to take a 14-12 lead. Jayce Furguson started the run with a floater and followed with a corner three. Emma Furguson capped the run with another triple.
Davis got South Greene going again by coming down the baseline for a runner. Bailey then hit an elbow jumper and South Greene took a 17-16 lead into the second quarter.
In the second frame South Greene’s high-pressure defense started to get to the Lady Bulldogs. The first turnover led to a three-pointer from Samantha Birdwell. Steals by Bailey in the backcourt then produced a layup for her and a free throw from Reagan Arrowood.
A steal by Alexa Gabbard set up Trinity Borner for mid-range jumper. Then Gabbard swiped another pass and Ari Hoese got it back to her for another layup. With three seconds left Birdwell knocked down a jumper from the top of the key to send South Greene into halftime leading 31-20.
The Lady Rebels were able to spread around the attack on Wednesday and got positive contributions from upwards of 10 players. Bailey led the team with 16 points and Davis put in 10. In total nine players scored in the win.
“It was a whole team effort today,” Gregg said. “The bench came in and they kept the energy up. Sometimes you want to put the bench in and not miss a beat, but I want those girls to increase things by a beat or two and to be that spark. We’re far from a finished product, we’re still learning our rotation, and it was good to see good things from so many girls.”
Caliborne scored the first five points of the second half to close the gap to 31-25.
The Lady Rebels answered with 12 consecutive points. Paisley Brobeck started the run with a pair of layups that pushed the advantage to 35-25. Birdwell then sent a 50-foot pass to bailey for a transition bucket.
With 1:38 left in the quarter Hoese scored three points the hard way to push the lead to 43-25.
South Greene took a 43-26 lead into fourth quarter.
Bailey scored South Greene’s first six points of the fourth quarter and with 3:43 left to play Davis dumped a pass to Gabbard on the block that put the Lady Rebels in front 52-31.
From there South Greene cruised to a 57-35 win.
Emily Buchanan led Claiborne with nine points.
The Lady Rebels will be back in action on Friday at 12:20 p.m. at Grainger against Cherokee.
South Greene knocked off Claiborne 57-35 on Wednesday morning in the Grainger Invitational. Hear what Lady Rebels Head Coach Stephen Gregg had to say after a big victory. pic.twitter.com/RtbpkSJmdE
— GreeneSportsZone (@GSportsZone) November 26, 2025
