FAIRLEA- The Greenbrier East Spartans hosted a Valentine’s night basketball game on Friday night, but there was definitely no love lost between the Spartans and the Princeton Tigers when East won 68-54 in a game that was called with 1.9 seconds left in the fourth quarter due to some chippy skirmishes between the players and coaches of both teams.
Thankfully, nothing escalated any further as the officials got everything under control and the players went to their respective locker rooms and the coaches’ shared hugs and handshakes in front of the scorer’s table.
With the 14-point victory, Greenbrier East completed the regular season sweep of the Tigers.
The game started rather slowly as both teams traded leads throughout the period. Brody Hamric scored the Spartans’ first two points of the night on a layup and Nathan Dixon chipped in four points to lead East. For Princeton, Nick Bailey carried the load and scored six of his team’s 13 first quarter points and after one, the Tigers held a slim 13-10 lead.
The Spartans (10-7) would find more offense in the second as Dixon came alive with seven more points, but the biggest key to Greenbrier East’s success was the play of Braylen Godfrey underneath. The sophomore scored six points in the quarter including two free throws and also battled Princeton big man Zayden Neely on the blocks all half. Godfrey was smooth in the minutes he played. Down 28-22 after a run out score from Dixon, Beasley hit a 3 and then got an old-fashioned 3-point play to tie the score at 28-all with 11 seconds left in the half. Then, the Spartans gained some big momentum when Hamric found Reed McCraw who drained a corner trifecta and gave East a 31-28 lead at the break.
Godfrey scored the first four for the Spartans in the second half including a hustle play where he ran the floor and followed up a miss for two points. Darius Burns then hit a 3 and extended the lead to 38-35, Spartans.
Dixon drained two 3s later in the quarter as the Spartans tried to pull away and they led 54-45 after three quarters.
East stayed consistently ahead in the fourth quarter as the Tigers never got any closer than eight points as East closed things out before the tempers started to flare.
Dixon stayed hot and led the Spartans in scoring with 21 points. Godfrey had 14 and McCraw contributed 12.
Bailey led the Tigers (8-6) with 15 points and Beasley added 14.
East will be back in action this Tuesday night, Feb. 18 when they host the Independence Patriots at 7:30 PM. The Spartans defeated Independence 82-44 just a couple of weeks ago.
Scoring by Quarter:
P- 13 15 17 9- 54
GE- 10 21 23 14- 68
Individual Scoring:
GE- Hamric 9, Dixon 21, McCraw 12, Godfrey 14, Hawver 2, Burns 8, Lambert 2
P- Beasley 14, Mosser 4, Neely 10, Cline 2, Bailey 15, Gumm 9
