The South Greene and Chuckey-Doak boys teams traded blows on Friday night, but the Rebels were able to land the last strikes and claimed an important 59-51 win in District 1-2A action.
“This is a good win for us. Chuckey-Doak is good,” South Greene coach Terry Hoese said. “They have shooters and kids that can get to the bucket, and defensively they did a good job. I felt the difference was that we were able to get rebounds. We outrebounded them by nine or 10. We held them to one shot in the second half, and we did a pretty decent job defensively.”
With the win South Greene improves to 2-2 in district play which keeps it within striking distance of 4-0 Unicoi County and 3-1 West Greene. Chuckey-Doak is now also 2-2 in league play. On Tuesday the Rebels will face Johnson County and Chuckey-Doak will play Unicoi County to complete the first round of league games.
“Getting this win was huge,” Hoese said. “Before Tuesday we were in cellar, but after these two wins we have the opportunity to get back to the top. We’re not there, but if we can get to 3-2 before going into the second part of the district schedule maybe we can finish in the top two heading into the tournament.”
Friday’s fourth quarter started with the Rebels clinging to a 44-42 lead, but an early putback by Chuckey-Doak’s Ben Palazzo brought things back to even. Gavin Crum tied things again at 46-46 with a layup, and Chuckey-Doak had a chance to go in front at the free-throw line but Logan Malone missed both attempts.
With 5:01 left to play South Greene’s Cayden Fillers scored on an inbound play to put the Rebels in front 48-46, and they never trailed again.
Fillers was a difference maker for South Greene on Friday as he scored 21 points, and in stretches controlled the paint, which helped the Rebels separate late.
“That is three of the last four nights where Cayden Fillers has been super for us,” Hoese said. “I felt like he and Noah (Wright) dominated the paint, and that was the difference in the game. I don’t know what our paint points were, but it felt like they were heavily in our advantage.”
With 2:43 left Knox McAmis lofted up a floater from the right block to get within one possession at 52-49, but South Greene responded with a one-minute possession that finished with Gavin Dyer sinking a pair of free throws.
The night finished with South Greene converting at the foul line and Chuckey-Doak missing contested outside shots. That led to Rebels pulling away to a 59-51 win.
“It was good to see that we could finish out a tight game with a win,” Hoese said. “And we had a lot of kids do some good things. We had several kids come off the bench and give us good minutes. If we can continue to do that, and get positive stuff from eight or nine kids we can be a pretty good team.”
Friday started with Chuckey-Doak gaining the first advantage. With 3:08 left in the first quarter the Knights went in front 11-9 when McAmis drained a trey from the right wing.
That lead grew to 18-11 when McAmis slashed through the paint for what turned into three-points the hard way. That was Chuckey-Doak’s biggest lead of the night.
The first quarter closed with Chuckey-Doak leading 18-12.
With 5:46 left in the first half Jameson White came off the bench and knocked down a deep three to close the gap to 18-17.
South Greene then evened the score at 21-21 when Fillers knocked down a jumper from the paint.
From there the teams traded buckets and Chuckey-Doak took a 31-29 lead into halftime. Charlie Lane scored five points for South Greene in the stretch while the Knights got four points from Jake Broyles.
South Greene tied the game again at 35-35 when Noah Wright sent a pass to Lane who went under the rim for a reverse with 5:11 left in the third period.
Wright, Fillers and Lane all scored inside as part of a 6-0 run that put the Rebels on top 41-37.
Chuckey-Doak’s Ryland Grindstaff was able to narrow the margin to 44-42 heading into the final frame when he came around a screen and nailed a fade-away trey from the corner.
In addition to 21 points from Fillers South Greene got 10 points from Wright and nine from Lane.
McAmis led Chuckey-Doak with 14 points and Grindstaff scored 12.
