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GREENEVILLE – Grainger hung tough for most of the first half in Friday’s game against Greeneville but Trey Thompson gave the Greene Devils what they needed to pull away for a win.

The 6-6 freshman scored 21 points for Greeneville to lead them to a 69-46 home victory over Grainger. Jayquan Price and Hayden Goad each added 15 points in the winning effort for the Greene Devils. Drew Branson once again was the leading scorer for the Grizzlies as he finished the contest with 18 points. Carter Williams added 13 points.

Grainger was on fire to start the contest as Williams and Branson combined to give them an 8-2 quick lead. The two-time defending 3-A state champions responded, however, as they were able to assert pressure through a full-court press that gave the Grizzlies troubles and resulted in a 14-10 lead at the end of the first period. A big scoring run that started in the first period carried over into the second as Greeneville made it a 19-2 advantage in scoring as they built a 21-10 lead on a dunk by Thompson. Grainger flipped the switch and eventually narrowed the Greene Devils’ lead to a point at 24-23 on a three by Logan Johnson. Ten straight points gave Greeneville the breathing room they needed before Branson and Ryland Burchett scored late to make it a 34-27 lead at the half.

“We hit that big lull in the first half but then it was nip and tuck at halftime as we came in only down seven,” Grainger head coach Adam Wolfenbarger said. “I was pretty happy with where we were other than I was concerned about turning the ball over 10 times. I’ve said many times there is just is no way to prepare for their pressure and no way to prepare for their speed and now our guys have seen that. Hopefully we can learn from that.”

The scoring went back and forth between the two squads to begin the third period as Branson scored five points in a row at one point before Greeneville answered with seven of their own down the stretch to make it a 52-35 affair headed to the fourth. Branson continued his hot shooting over the final eight minutes as he scored eight points but the Greene Devils were still able to keep the Grizzlies at bay to claim a 69-46 win. Wolfenbarger said going against Greeneville’s relentless pressure through the press was a difficult assignment for his team. “We wanted to try to beat the press quick and that’s common. Maybe we didn’t get up in the middle and be as strong as we needed to but we were trying to beat the press quickly and when you see it, you just want to go, go, go. That’s not the answer so once we got slowed down, I thought we did a better job as the game moved on but we had a pretty bad strategy for a couple of minutes against their pressure.”

After playing at Seymour on Monday night, the Grizzlies return to The Den for a long home stretch which begins with Cherokee on Wednesday and then South Greene comes to town for a non-district matchup on Friday.