From a record standpoint, Thursday night’s win for the Greyhounds against Westside Macon won’t be documented in a formal win-loss column. But from an emotional standpoint for a team led by three seniors and a bevy of underclassmen? It mattered an awful lot.
The Greyhounds withstood an early surge by the Seminoles before outsourcing the visitors by 10 points in the fourth quarter, winning 60-46.
“This is unbelieveable because these guys have been kind of bottled up and told, ‘they can’t play basketball.’ We have a pretty good basketball team here in Jones County,” Greyhounds head coach Dylan Dupree said. “Now, we need the community to come support them and see how exciting of a basketball team that there is in Jones County.”
The Hounds trailed 28-25 at the half but steadily took over from that point forward, leading 44-40 entering the fourth quarter. JCHS had an advantage against Westside with some Seminoles being out of the lineup due to the Seminoles’ football season, and the Greyhounds took the opportunity, controlling the final eight minutes, the key span being a pair of three-pointers by Justin Ray for a 56-43 lead with 2:28 to play.
“Westside is a very good team, but you could see that they did not have very much depth,” Dupree said. “For us, that is going to be one of our strengths. We have three seniors, those are our three pillars, but after that, we’re going to mold this ninth and 10th-grade group.”
Ray led Jones County with 14 points with Rudy Bowden and K.J. Gray having nine and eight points. Thomas Gosier powered his way to 12 points.
“(Gosier) has worked his tail off these past three or four months,” Dupree said. “He has committed to be a better football and basketball player, and he’ll help us win a lot of games in this region.”
The Greyhounds host Kendrick at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
