Greenwood opened up the game against South Warren with 20 unanswered points, and the Gators were able to contend with every single Spartan rally to hang on for a 69-60 victory at “The Swamp” on Friday night—marking Greenwood’s fourth victory in five games.
“You knew (South Warren) was going to make a run at us,” Greenwood head coach Bob Pels said. “There was no question about that. But I wasn’t sure I could convince the kids of that. They thought: ‘Oh 20-0, we’re going home.’ Not so easy I promise you.”
Greenwood (12-12, 2-5 District 14) led 20-0 before the Spartans finally got on the board on a pair of technical free throws by Tyler Martin, and South Warren chipped in five more points before the end of the quarter to narrow the deficit to 20-7.
South Warren (12-12, 1-6) surrendered the first six points of the second quarter before the Spartans went on a dominating 12-0 run. Jace Carver had a steal and layup to make it a nine-point game before Greenwood was whistled for yet another technical—this time for smacking the backboard while going for the block. Martin added two more technical free throws to whittle the margin down to 26-19.
The Gators narrowly outscored the Spartans 7-5 the rest of the half to take a 33-24 lead into the locker room.
Both sides broke even in the third quarter at 14-14 to make it 47-38 going into the fourth.
On South Warren’s first possession of the fourth quarter, Carver netted a three from the left wing to cut the lead down to 47-41.
But the Spartans would not be able to get any closer the rest of the way.
The Gators then took control of the game with back-to-back baskets by Jack Roberts and Gee Floyd, and Greenwood extended its lead to 63-48 at the 3:07 mark of the fourth quarter. The Spartans were able to cut it back down to eight on a layup by Tayshawn Jones, but with just 59 seconds left in the game it was just simply too little, too late for South Warren.
The one-two punch of Roberts and sophomore Ben Carroll carried Greenwood to victory, scoring 23 and 26 points, respectively, in the win.
Carroll also hauled down nine rebounds for the Gators, and Pels had words of praise for the sophomore in his breakout season.
“You have to remember he didn’t play last year,” Pels said. “He just played a few games at the end so this is huge for him. He’s only a sophomore. The fact that he’s 6-6 is great, but he’s making shots that at 5-10 would still be nice shots. That’s what makes him hard to guard sometimes. And he has to go down and rebound for us, and [Friday night] he did a real nice job.”
Colin Moore led South Warren in the loss with 15 points while Tyler Martin added 11. Carver finished with 10 for the Spartans.
Greenwood will now shift its focus to a home game against Franklin-Simpson on Saturday night. The Gators handed the Wildcats a 48-46 overtime defeat down in Franklin in the season opener for both teams.
“Tomorrow night is a good game because it’s not a district game but you know you have to play hard,” Pels said. “Saturday games are sometimes tough. You don’t get a ton of people in the stands and you have to kind of motivate yourself. We’ll just see if we can keep it going.”
Meanwhile South Warren will look to snap its two-game skid at Warren East on Tuesday night. The Spartans lost to the Raiders by a score of 74-68 in double overtime back on Dec. 8.
