LEWISBURG (WVDN) – A career game for senior Kaiden Huffman was not enough for the Greenbrier East Spartans on Friday night, Feb. 17, as they lost 84-81 to the Princeton Tigers in overtime.
The Spartans are reeling in the midst of a four-game losing streak, but positives can be taken from the loss to the Tigers. Two of those are the performances by Huffman and Monquelle Davis. Davis followed Huffman’s career best with 19 points of his own and played an integral role in the contest. The other is with the loss, East will play Oak Hill in the first round of the sectional tournament instead of having to face Princeton again. East just recently beat Oak Hill handily.
Late in the fourth quarter with 2:12 left, Princeton led 69-65 when the Tigers were assessed a technical foul because a player was listed in the official scorebook with a wrong jersey number. After a 3-minute referee conference at the scorer’s table, Goose Gabbert hit both technical free throws then Huffman scored underneath, and the score was tied at 69-all.
East had a chance to win in regulation, but a missed 3 from Davis sent it to the extra session.
The Spartans never seemed comfortable in overtime. They did not play that bad, it just seemed like Princeton caught most of the breaks and converted some easy layups and free throws en route to the win.
Huffman scored 24 points to lead East. Seams had 16, and Gabbert got 12.
Kris Joyce scored 21 for Princeton, and Coen Sarten added 18. Grant Cochran had 16 and Nik Fleming rounded out their balanced scoring with 10.
P: 20 17 20 12 15
GE: 17 13 17 22 12
East will try to cap the regular season with a victory when they host Class AA no. 1 Bluefield this Wednesday night, Feb. 22.
Stats courtesy of 103.1, WRON.
