Frank Speziale Photo
GREENE – The Greene girls varsity basketball team survives the first round of the Section IV Class C tournament, a team that holds a winning regular season record, but has flown under the radar throughout the season.
This is exactly what Greene did once again – having a roster with just two seniors compared to the visiting Warriors with six – the lady Trojans swarmed the ball all night resulting in a sloppy Sidney performance and Greene first-round win at 49-37.
Three minutes into the game and the lady Warriors of Sidney seemed to be tossing in the towel already – as Greene climbed to an early 6-0 lead – from the solid play of Alyssa Sands and Emma Smith. With the clock ticking down just under the 5:00 minute mark, Sidney continued their slide – as Greene capitalized off of Sidney's fifth turnover in just over three minutes.
Following a time out from Sidney coach Lindsay Coons, the Warriors found a way to make their mark dropping a clean layup on the Greene defense – the period would end 11-3 in favor of the home lady Trojans.
Sands continued her dominant performance on the night, on Feb. 21, in front of her cheering hometown crowd – attacking the rim seven additional points in the second period – Sands finished with a team high 20 points, with three three-pointers and going 5-8 from the line with six steals.
Greene took the halftime lead at 25-15, comfortably in the drivers seat of the game after 16 minutes – outscoring the visitors 14-12 in the period. Sidney would not make it a somewhat contest at the half until the three minute mark hit, that is when the lady Warriors were able to change the scored from a 23-7 mark to 25-15, snagging eight points in the final minutes.
Only leading by 10 points when the halftime break was finished – Greene's head coach Dave Gorton saw his lady Trojans employ much of the same defensive style of play – swarming the ball and playing opportunistic basketball.
However, despite their best efforts Sidney would best Greene on the offensive end of the court – as the lady Warriors hit three long three-pointers in the third period to outscore Greene 11-8 in the stanza.
Greene, with a chance to advance and grab a home sectional win, led Sidney 33-26.
That is when Gorton reminded his team of the fundamentals – and the forgotten yet possibly most important aspect of the game of basketball – free throws. Alyssa Sands continued her fine performance in the game knocking down 5-6 from the charity stripe. However, Sands was heavily assisted in the easy points from the line as Brianna Austin went 2-2 from the line in the fourth, while Emma Smith added in a 1-2 mark – combining for a phenomenal 8-10. Toss in a three from both McKenna Sergi and Sands, coupled with an additional field goal from Sergi and the lady Trojans found themselves the victors, outscoring Sidney 16-11 down the home-stretch.
