South Harrison’s varsity basketball teams traveled to Trenton on Friday night, as the “Bulldog” rivals met in Grand River Conference competition. Trenton entered the game much more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and related quarantines for close contacts, resulting in the THS girls having only five players available for the game. While the Trenton boys were not as hard hit by the virus, a Tuesday night knee injury suffered by senior center Royce Jackson at Princeton will keep him out of the Bulldog lineup for the foreseeable future, leaving Trenton with a starting lineup of boys all under 5’10” for the game against South Harrison.
The South Harrison girls started fast against the host Lady Bulldogs, jumping out to a 13-0 lead after one quarter of play. Trenton made a series of surges through the final three quarters, but never rallied for the lead, falling by a final score of 35-25. Compounding the Trenton difficulties in the fourth quarter, small forward Morgan King injured her foot, leaving THS with only four players to finish the contest. Hannah Carter of South Harrison and Rebecca Urich of Trenton both led their squads with 11 point nights.
South Harrison improves to 1-6 overall and 1-0 in GRC play, while Trenton falls to 2-5 overall, and 0-2 in GRC competition.
For the boys game, with Trenton lacking the presence of Jackson inside the paint, South Harrison’s obvious advantage came from the strength and size of 6’4″ senior center Luke Karns, who scored a game-high 28 points in a 61-40 victory for the visitors from Bethany. Brayden Sunderman added 12 for South Harrison, now 6-2 overall and 2-0 in conference play.
Trenton started strong but withered late, falling to 2-5 overall and 0-2 in GRC play. Chase Otto had 19 points and Brycin Loyd hit five 3-point shots to finish with 15 for the Bulldogs.
The lack of available players for the Trenton girls will not improve by Christmas week, leading THS Athletic Director John Cowling to postpone the Bulldogs Monday night road trip to Meadville. Those games have been moved to Wednesday, February 10th.
Other scores from Friday, December 18, 2020 were:
GIRLS:
Cameron 49, Columbia Battle 43
North Platte 48, Penney 42
Worth County 36, St. Joseph Christian 35
North Andrew 26, King City 20
Lawson 52, Plattsburg 18
Marceline 61, LaPlata 59 (OT)
Atlanta 56, Brashear 22
Macon 54, Clark County 39
Putnam County 60, Polo 58
East Buchanan d. Lathrop
Mid-Buchanan 46, West Platte 40
BOYS:
Putnam County 64, Polo 53
Clark County 41, Macon 38
Marceline 63, LaPlata 28
St. Joseph Benton 44, Maryville 42
Penney 55, North Platte 50
Osborn/Stewartsville 55, East Atchison 43
North Andrew 66, King City 27
Worth County 57, St. Joseph Christian 54
The coronavirus pandemic has taken a chunk out of the high school basketball schedules heading into Christmas week. Among the postponements are Grundy R-V at Linn County scheduled for Monday, December 21st. All basketball and cheer practices at Grundy R-V are cancelled until Monday, December 28th. The cheer team and both Panther basketball teams, last weekend, dealt with cases of ‘close contacts’ with a person later testing positive for the COVID-19 virus.
At Milan, a recent close contact within the Wildcat basketball programs means that the teams have not played since competing at the Tri-Rivers Classic three weeks ago. The games at Polo originally scheduled for Tuesday, December 15th have been moved to Monday, February 8th. The games scheduled at Brookfield for Thursday, December 17th have been moved to Saturday, January 2nd, with varsity games at the BHS gym at 2 o’clock, while JV games are played at the middle school gym at the same times.
Milan’s GRC games at Maysville, originally scheduled for Friday, December 18th have been moved to Wednesday, December 30th, with a JV girls game at 4 o’clock, followed by JV boys, varsity girls, and varsity boys contests.
Princeton had to postponed home games with Mercer on Monday, December 21st and LaPlata on Tuesday, December 22nd due to COVID-19 concerns. The Tigers doubleheader at Green City on Tuesday, December 29th remains scheduled to be played as originally planned.
