Greenwood traveled down Scottsville road looking rebound off of a heartbreaking loss against Daviess County. The problem was that Greenwood was looking to rebound against the best team in Region 4, Bowling Green.
The Purples came into the game riding high off of a 10 point win against Barren County, and looked to continue their winning ways against a Greenwood team they had already beaten on the road.
The Gators on the other hand were looking to simply get back to five hundred.
At the outset Bowling Green established a dominance in the attacking front, but the scoring just didn’t show up for either team.
Greenwood’s defense executed the gameplay to perfection holding the high-scoring Purples to just 11 points in the first quarter, their lowest scoring quarter this season.
The Gators seemed to catch the same bug, however, with Dawson Crump’s left handed finger roll being the only basket for Greenwood in the first quarter.
The two teams continued to fight for momentum as the first half came to a close. Greenwood scored one more point than the Purples in the second quarter courtesy of three balls by Stephen Sanders and Scotty Harris. Caleb Miller dominated the boards and was a huge reason why Bowling Green only scored 19 points through the first 16 minuets of the game.
Miller played hard down low and made a point of limiting the purples to one shot per possession during most of the first half. “Bobby” also was charged with the tough task of shutting down Bowling’s 6’6 Junior Forward Terry Taylor. Taylor came into Friday night’s game averaging 19 points, but only tallied 7 on the night.
As the intermission ended the Purples decided to push down on the accelerator. The Purples outscored Greenwood 16-10 in the 3rd quarter.
It would have been 16-7 if not for what could turn out to be the shot of the year by Dawson Crump. With 1.2 left on the clock after a Purples basket, Crump received the inbounds pass from Stephen Sanders and launched a shot from the Bowling Green free throw line that swished through as the buzzer sounded.
During the post game show Caleb Miller said that he wasn’t surprise that the shot went in. Miller said that Crump practiced those type of “crazy” shots all the time during practices.
It looked that the shot from Crump would give the Gators a bit of momentum heading into the home stretch, but it was not to be. The Purples poured on 22 points in the final quarter and improved to 13-2 on the season.
Greenwood played hard and fought to the bitter end but have now fallen to 7-9.
Stephen Sanders led the Gators in the scoring attack with 14 points 5 of which came from the charity stripe, and one three. Dawson Crump was named the Bluegrass Cellular Player of the Game in a 10 point effort but his shot at the end of the third quarter and passing pushed him over the edge.
Greenwood will look to rebound Tuesday as the travel to Russellville, tipoff is set for 7:30.
