The Greeneville boys had to hold off a hot-shooting Morristown East team while battling through adversity on Tuesday evening to rally in the second half and collect a 68-60 win.
“Morristown East did a great job of coming out and shooting the ball. In the first half they mucked up our offense, and we had to overcome that,” Greeneville coach Brad Woolsey said. “But this was a good opportunity for us to fight through a difficult situation. These guys kept plugging away and different guys stepped up, which is what you have to have.”
The Greene Devils went into halftime trailing 36-30 while Woolsey had to manage his rotation as six players picked up two personal fouls in the first half.
On top of that sharpshooter Isaac Greene had scored 18 points while knocking down five three-pointers. In the second half Woolsey handed Isaac McGill the assignment to of shutting down Greene, and he did not score another point the rest of the night.
“At halftime we told Isaac that we don’t want (Greene) to score anymore,” Woolsey said. “He was killing us. Isaac guarded him the whole second half and he didn’t give up anything. Isaac was the X factor tonight. When his energy is high and his aura is positive he is a difference maker.”
The second half began with Greeneville’s Dominic Tweed and East’s Anderson Noe trading three-pointers. With 3:29 left in the third period Trey Thompson emphatically blocked a layup attempt by Greene and Yordan Mills took it the other way for a breakaway layup that evened the score at 39-39.
The Hurricanes pestered and pounded Thompson all-night long with inconsistent intervention from the officials. But as the game went on that only seemed to fire up the Devils’ big man. Throughout the third quarter he seemingly erased everything that entered the paint, while forcefully corralling every rebound in his orbit. He also led all scorers with 29 points.
“Trey always plays with good energy, but when somebody brings more energy he steps it up a level,” Woolsey said. “Sometimes he tries to play so hard it works against him, but he dialed himself in tonight. He was so good in the second half. They were trying to take stuff away, and he let them, then made them pay with his passing.”
The teams traded shots over next three minutes, but with 25-seconds left the Devils earned a five-point possession. Cole Franklin was fouled by Noe going for a layup, and Noe’s remarks about the call earned a technical foul. Franklin made both of his free throws and Thompson made one of two technical free throws. With the ball back the Devils ran 21 seconds off the clock before Thompson was fouled again. He made both tosses and Greeneville took a 51-46 lead into the fourth quarter.
Noe started the fourth quarter with a three-pointer for East, but then Greeneville went on an 8-2 run to go in front 59-51. The run finished with Thompson finding McGill in the paint and he rolled in a spinning reverse.
With 2:55 left Thompson caught an inbound pass and launched a triple from the left wing that gave Greeneville its biggest lead to that point at 62-53.
With the Hurricanes fouling down the stretch the Devils’ lead grew to 68-57 on a Thompson free throw. East’s Cory Carpenter finished the night with a last-second three-pointer.
The night started much differently with Greene nailing a trio of treys on East’s first three possessions for a quick 9-0 lead.
Thompson stopped the run with a three-pointer of his own, but the Hurricanes still led 13-5 with 2:15 left in the opening period.
With 59 seconds left Franklin took a steal the distance to close the gap to 13-9, but East ended the quarter leading 14-9.
With 6:42 remaining in first half Tweed fired in a three-pointer from the right corner to close the gap to 16-15.
Greene answered with a pair of three-pointers on the other end as the lead grew to 22-17. At the same time Greeneville struggled to get the ball inside as fouls against Thompson increased but whistles did not.
That showed most heavily on a sideline inbound with 5:26 left to play. It started during the dead ball when an East defender began to undercut Thompson directly in front of the baseline official. Once the ball was in play Thompson was held to prevent him from getting the ball in front of the same official. Once Thompson got the ball he was defended with two-handed pressure in front of the same official. Then when Thompson swiveled to create space against the litany of contact, he was called for an offensive foul. Woolsey then was assessed a technical foul by the same official for coming to his players’ defense.
Carpenter made both free tosses and the lead grew to 26-19.
Three-pointers by Ryan Maggert and Mills allowed Greeneville to close the gap to 29-26, but East took a 36-30 lead into halftime.
Greene led East with 18 points, all in the first half. Carpenter had 16 points, and Archer had 12 points.
GIRLS
MORRISTOWN EAST 53, GREENEVILLE 39
Points were hard to come by on Tuesday night for the Greeneville girls as they fell to Morristown East 53-39.
“We were a step slow on everything we did tonight, and Morristown East gets a lot of credit for that,” Greeneville coach Annette Watts said. “We just couldn’t score, we turned it over a lot, and we couldn’t rebound. You’re not going to win many games that way.”
The Lady Devils only put four players in the scoring column and 29 of their 39 points came from two players with Kyla Jobe putting in 17 and Abby Adkins scoring 12.
The night started with Morristown East jumping in front 9-2 behind three-pointers from Hannah Hall and Riley Forester. Greeneville had opportunities to cut into the lead and played good enough defense to stay in the game, but the Lady Hurricanes ended the period up 11-4.
In the early portion of the second quarter neither offense could get much going, but Adkins knocked down a three-pointer to close the gap to 11-7. Through the first four minutes of the period the teams combined for five points.
Adkins drove the lane twice for a pair of lay ins that cut East’s lead to 18-13. Over the final 20 seconds of the period East got points from Josie Helton and Hall to take a 22-13 lead into the break.
In the third quarter Jobe did her best to lift Greeneville’s offense as she scored nine points and assisted on a pair of layups from Matea Gray.
Harmony Sullivan and Forester kept pace for East with three-pointers and the Lady Hurricanes maintained a 34-26 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Through most of the fourth quarter the teams traded points, but the Lady Devils could not put a dent in the lead. Hudson Cloniger scored six points for East while Sullivan went 7-of-8 at the free-throw line in the final two minutes as the lead grew to 53-39.
Hall led Morristown Eats with 16 points, while Sullivan scored 13 points.
