The Greeneville boys ran away to a 76-47 win over Volunteer on Tuesday night to wrap up a perfect season in District 2-3A action.
“Overall I felt like it was a good night, but we still have to get better,” Greeneville coach Brad Woolsey said. “There was something to finish tonight, we wanted to finish conference play unbeaten and we were able to do that. Now we’ll look to what’s next.”
Greeneville still has three regular-season games left, but the district tournament will begin next week at Volunteer with the Greene Devils as the top seed.
“We need to do a better job getting connected defensively. Hopefully over the next couple of days of practice we can find that again,” Woolsey said. “I want to keep seeing guys step in and doing their jobs. Cole Franklin is an example of that, he has really been doing a good job recently, and that is exciting. We need to continue to see those types of things to put ourselves in the best position to win.”
Tuesday’s second half began with Greeneville leading 34-17, but things really began clicking for the Devils and by the end of the period that lead grew to 56-27.
First the Flacons closed the gap to 36-24 when Owen Miller sank a three-pointer from the right wing. From there Greeneville finished the period on a 20-3 run.
Trey Thompson tipped in an offensive rebound to start the run, and then got an off-target alley-oop attempt around the backboard in mid air to push the advantage to 40-24.
From there the Greene Devils pushed the pace and attacked the paint with Zaydyn Anderson scoring six points and Dom Tweed putting in four points. Just before the buzzer Jherivus Moore swiped the ball on the Falcons’ end of the floor and sent it ahead to Cole Franklin for a layup that pushed the advantage to 56-27.
“I feel like we started getting good paint touches in the third quarter,” Woolsey said. “Zay started getting down hill and made some baskets. Some of that difference was in the first half we were turning it over and missing bunnies. In the second half we didn’t turn it over as much, we didn’t miss bunnies, and we got some offensive rebounds. Things look a lot better when you do that.”
In the fourth quarter Greeneville’s reserves did most of the damage with Ryan Maggert nailing a pair of triples and Broylen Kidwell driving through the lane for four points. Ryan Jobe finished the scoring by rolling in a hook shot in the 76-47 win.
Greeneville’s offense started quickly on Tuesday and scored six points in the first minute. Thompson’s first bucket of the night was a three-pointer from the right wing, and then after an offensive rebound by Thompson Franklin hit from beyond the arc.
The Devils’ lead reached 14-5 after a steal by Franklin set up Thompson to go the length of floor for a lay in.
Volunteer’s Owen Tullock ended the period with a three-pointer that closed the gap to 16-11.
Thompson began a dominant second quarter by spinning around Volunteer’s Luke Armstrong for a layup. He then faded away for a hook shot in the paint. Thompson went on to score 10 of his game-high 25 points in the second quarter and took a 34-17 lead into halftime.
“We weren’t synced up very well offensively tonight, but one thing we want to do is get the ball inside to Trey and let him work. He’s also really good at distributing and we want the ball in his hands. We trust him and he delivered,” Woolsey said.
Franklin and Anderson each scored 11 points for Greeneville while 10 of the 11 players the Devils dressed on Tuesday scored.
Brennan Greene led Volunteer with 11 points, all in the fourth quarter, and Miller scored 10 points.
