GREENCASTLE — The night after a historic win over Danville, Southmont boys basketball was back in action as they traveled to take on the Greencastle Tiger Cubs. Coming off their first win of the season, Greencastle carried that momentum over into Saturday night and made life difficult for the Mounties. Southmont trailed 12-11 after one quarter of play and needed an acrobatic layup from Carter Hubble at the buzzer to take just two point 25-23 lead into halftime. Greencastle never backed down from the challenge and kept the game close the entire way, but ultimately the Mounties staged off the Tiger Cub upset and held on for a 43-38 win.
“Coach Rector is one of the best coaches that we see on our schedule and gets his guys to play hard and physical,” Southmont coach Jake Turner said. “We knew it was going to be a difficult task to come in and win because they would be well coached and well prepared. I think we were a little physically and mentally tired from beating Danville the other night but our guys hung in and were able to hold on.”
Both Greencastle and Southmont never led by more than six points the entire night. Greencastle’s Cole Hutcheson (16) and Evan Alexander (15) led all scorers in the game for the Tiger Cubs. They also combined to hit all seven of Greencastle’s made threes. Tiger Cub coach Bryce Rector was proud of the way his team battled in what ended up being a grind it out game.
“Southmont’s a really good team and they have five to six really good athletes,” Rector said. “They do a lot of things on offense to make you uncomfortable on defense and that’s where I was most proud of our guys is our effort on that side of the ball. You want to win obviously, but I was really encouraged with how we played and were in position to win that game so we’ve made a lot of strides in the first month of the season.”
Southmont stays perfect on the season as they move to 6-0 (2-0 SAC) while Greencastle falls to 1-4. The Mounties were led in scoring by Logan Oppy with 14 points. Carson Chadd added in 12 and Avery Saunders scored eight in the win.
To begin the final quarter, Southmont was clinging to a 34-33 lead. Their defense held strong for most of the quarter not allowing a Tiger Cub point until around the three-minute mark. After Alexander made the game 41-38 with 14.5 seconds left, Oppy missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity at the free-throw line. Fortunate for the Mounties Chadd was in perfect position to grab the offensive board. He’d then make both of his free-throws to seal the Southmont win.
“In a game with limited possessions, it came down to our communication and executing on our personnel,” Turner said. “We did a good job of rebounding and holding them to just one shot and not putting them on the free-throw line. To hold anyone under 40 points in a high school basketball game is impressive.”
While the Tiger Cubs are still looking to find their groove on the offensive end, Rector and the Tiger Cubs as they have for years now, will look to hang their hats on the defensive side of the ball.
“Defense travels and allows you to sustain bad nights offensively,” he said. “Those nights happen but when you can defend you can keep yourself in most games. Southmont just beat Danville who is arguably the favorite to win our sectional, and we competed with them for four quarters so looking towards the end of the year, we think we can be in games with anybody.”
Southmont on the other hand also proved while they like to be a run and gun style offense, they have the ability to slow the game down and play and different tempos if that is how the game will be dictated.
“That’s the good thing about our team is we proved that we can execute in the half court and play games in the 40’s,” Turner said. “We told the guys to win a sectional, you’re going to have to execute like we did tonight in the half-court on both sides of the floor. Tonight was a great experience for us.”
Southmont will travel to Western Boone Friday night for a SAC contest with the Stars while Greencastle travels to Sullivan also on Friday night.
