North Greene traveled to Johnson City on Saturday afternoon to wrap up the regular season and leaned on the one-two punch of Tyler Britton and Thomas Darnell to defeat University High 57-40, securing the No. 3 seed in the upcoming District 1-A Tournament.
“That’s awesome and a heck of a one-two punch,” said Coach Matt Weems of Britton and Darnell, who each scored 18 points. “I know other teams won’t like that, but I really enjoy having that on my team. Both of them are really good leaders for us, and we go as they go.”
Zulum Aninyei gave the Buccaneers an early lead with a basket just 28 seconds into the game, but Britton answered with a three-pointer to put the Huskies in front for good.
Darnell then converted a pass from Isaac Gaby into a basket to make it 5-2 before Aninyei pulled University High back within one with 4:59 remaining in the first quarter.
North Greene responded with eight more points from Britton to stretch the lead to 18-10 by the end of the opening period.
Tylen Templin opened the second quarter with a three-pointer to cut the deficit to 18-13. Darnell answered with a jumper, and Gaby followed with a three to push the lead back to 23-13.
Templin added his second basket of the quarter with 5:26 left before the Huskies went on a 7-1 run over the next two minutes to build a 30-16 advantage. University High closed the half on a 6-0 run, trimming the deficit to 30-22 at the break.
Darnell took control early in the second half, scoring 10 points to help North Greene extend the lead to 43-32.
Over the final eight minutes, the Huskies remained patient on offense, executed in the half court and capitalized on defensive lapses by the Buccaneers to pull away for the win. The victory improved North Greene to 10-18 overall and 4-4 in conference play.
North Greene now turns their attention to their opening round matchup with Unaka at 7:30 on Saturday. “We just need to continue getting a little better each day,” stresses Weems. “We are not afraid of anyone, and we will play whoever is next.”
