Greyhounds advance with win over South Gallia

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

After winning five of their last seven regular season outings to get back to the .500 mark, Coach Austin Kingsolver and the Manchester Greyhounds opened their postseason on February 20, hosting the South Gallia Rebels in a Division VII district quarterfinal match up. The #6 seeded Hounds, playing well at the right time of the year, kept the ball rolling in the right direction, placing three players in double figures and leading wire-to-wire in a 55-39 victory that propelled them into the district semifinals.

“I thought our kids did a really good job preparing for this game,” Coach Kingsolver told C103 Radio in the postgame. “I think that showed in the first half on the defensive end.”

On their first possession of a rare Thursday night boys game, a runner from Ronnie Elam gave the host Greyhounds a lead they never gave up. A later perfectly executed lob play from Parker Hayslip to Elijah Crabtree put the home team up 6-3 and they followed that up with a Hayslip three-pointer, a stickback from Braylon Rickett and a Braylan Roberts trey to lead 14-3 at the end of the first quarter.

In the second stanza, the Hounds opened with a 6-3 spurt, two of those buckets coming from Hayslip. A three-pointer from Gallia’s Hayden Kemp cut the Manchester lead to 20-9, but the Greyhounds answered with another Hayslip three-ball and a basket by Rickett to take a 25-9 advantage into the halftime break.

The visiting Rebels made things briefly interesting for their fans as a high-scoring third quarter began, getting five points from Caleb Frazee on their first two possessions, but the Hounds quickly silenced that thought with Hayslip hitting two from the stripe after a Gallia technical foul and then added a Crabtree three on the ensuing possession top push the margin out to 33-14.

South Gallia bounced back with a three-point goal from Carson Stowers, but again the Hounds had an answer, with Crabtree going deep from the corner and later getting the old-fashioned three-point play to make it 41-25. When Hayslip went coast to coast in the final seconds of the quarter, the home team went into the final eight minutes with a comfortable 44-25 advantage.

Nothing changed as the fourth quarter progressed as the Greyhounds continued to function with a double-digit lead on the scoreboard. Manchester got a six-point effort from Leland Horner, the final six points for the home team as they cruised home with the 16-point victory and berth in the district semifinals.

The winners were led by three players who hit double figures, led by 14 points from Parker Hayslip. Braylon Rickett had a monster game, scoring 13 points and hauling down 8 rebounds and dishing out 4 assists. Elijah Crabtree also chipped in 13 points as the Greyhounds shot 51% from the field and took good care of the basketball, committing just 7 turnovers.

“Elijah just does a lot of good things for us,” said Coach Kingsolver. “I was really proud of him and his effort tonight.”

South Gallia was led in scoring by 14 points from Hayden Kemp.

The now 12-11 Greyhounds will be back in action on Wednesday, February 26, a district semifinal match up with #3 seeded Racine Southern. That game will take place at Waverly High School with a scheduled 8:30 p.m. tip off. At stake is a trip to the Convo on March 2 for a district championship contest.

“We’ll spend the next couple of days watching film on Southern and going over what they do in our practice time,” Kingsolver added. “We will be prepared by game time.”

South Gallia

3 6 16 14 —39

Manchester

14 11 19 11 —55

S. Gallia (39): L. Wright 1 0-4 2, Frazee 3 0-0 7, H. Wright 2 2-4 6, Kemp 5 1-2 14, Stowers 2 2-2 8, Sheets 1 0-0 2, Team 13 5-12 39.

Manchester (55): Hayslip 5 2-2 14, Roberts 1 3-8 6, Elam 1 1-2 3, Rickett 6 1-3 13, Horner 2 2-2 6, Crabtree 5 1-1 13, Team 20 10-18 55.

Three-Point Goals:

S. Gallia (6) – Frazee 1, Kemp 3, Stowers 2

Manchester (5) – Hayslip 2, Roberts 1, Crabtree 2