LLOYD
By BRANDON ROSEN / For The Independent — It may have only been the second game back for Greenup County head coach Tim Fraley after his two-week suspension, but it looked like his team hasn’t missed a beat as Greenup County beat Raceland 58-43 Saturday night at the Greenhouse.
“Those two weeks were great for me,” Fraley said. “This school has so much negativity that runs through it and I bought into that for awhile. Those two weeks off gave me a chance to step back and get out of that mess and refocus myself and my team, not on the things we can’t do well, but on the things we can do well.
“Our kids bought into that positive energy and we had four great days of practice before this, and it showed out here tonight.”
The positives definitely came out for the Musketeers as they jumped out to an early 16-6 lead in the first quarter, using full court defensive pressure to force Raceland into 26 turnovers on the game, and held them to only three field goals in the entire second half.
“Our defense was good from top to bottom,” Fraley said. “No matter who I substituted, or whether we were playing zone or man, I thought the boys did a great job with their energy level all game long.”
The Greenup County offense seemed to follow suit from top to bottom as the Musketeers had eight players score, led by junior Trey Williams with 14 points despite playing a limited amount in the second half due to foul trouble. But the Greenup County bench proved to be the deciding factor as they scored 21 points, including eight from junior Craig Tackett and eight from sophomore Hayden Stephenson, who played a big role in the paint for the Musketeers after both Williams and junior Michael Hampton fouled out.
“We’ve got nice size and nice athletes, and when we play with energy and within ourselves, it doesn’t matter who is out on the court, we are going to play with anybody in the area,” Fraley said.
Despite getting down early, Raceland kept fighting back in a game that had a tournament-type atmosphere. After getting down by as many as 10 points in the second quarter, Raceland senior Cody Barker, who finished with a team-high 11 points, scored seven of them in the second quarter to help pull the Rams to within five points at halftime.
But that would be as close as Raceland would get as the Musketeers pulled away in the second half.
“They were running and jumping us and we just weren’t taking care of the basketball.” Raceland coach Scott Floyd said. “We knew what they were going to do, and we prepared for it, we just weren’t able to execute. I think if we don’t turn the ball over so many times we give ourselves an opportunity to win tonight. But all we can do is take this as another learning experience and move on and get ready for our next game.”
