Game after game over the past month, the parity throughout much of Region 2-AAAA has been evident.
The Greyhounds were on the less desirable side of that during Saturday’s opening round of the region tournament against ELCA.
After winning four of their final six games to close the season, the Greyhounds saw their hopes for a deep region tournament run dashed at the JCHS Gymnasium on Saturday, falling 63-53 to the Chargers. Jones County ends its season at 7-18, rebounding from an 0-7 start.
The Greyhounds got a solid start on Saturday, leading 20-15 after a quarter. But a 7-0 run by the Chargers late in the first turned out to be a precursor as ELCA led 27-22 with 4:25 left until halftime and inched away from there. Jones County, held to five secondquarter points, had plenty of fight within despite trailing 31-25 at halftime.
“We started out with good energy, and when Rudy (Bowden) picked up his third (foul), it’s like our energy dropped off. It’s like we got away from the road map we had been following,” Greyhounds head coach Willie Reese said. “They went to a 1-2-2, which was not that hard, but we didn’t follow our game plan. They got a lead and then it broke down on us.”
Four third-quarter points by both Justin Ray and Tyler Wold kept the Greyhounds in it, and one of those buckets by Wold was an offensive putback to trail 47-37 late in the third. But in a microcosm of the second half, Wold’s score was answered by a Chargers three pointer, and JCHS was never able to draw any closer than 10 points the rest of the way, ending the season for Jones County.
“They had an answer, but we should not have let them that lead,” Reese said. “When we made some unforced errors, we got that lead.”
The Greyhounds capped the final week of the regular season by going 1-1, rebounded from a Tuesday 65-53 loss to Union Grove by overwhelming Stockbridge 58-42 on Wednesday led by Wold’s 18 points and 11 from Justin Ray Now, the Greyhounds turn focus to the offseason for a team that will return players such as Ray and Rudy Bowden while those graduating include Wold, Jakeylan Wilburn and Chance Banks.
“We have to start working in the next few weeks in the weight room and have to get a lot of skill work done,” Reese said. “We have guys whose roles and responsibilities have changed. We just have to get to work.”
