WEB CAST.
Coming into play on Friday night, Coach Eddie Gray and his Garner Trojans were looking to extend their current winning streak to six games, but in order to keep that winning streak going, they would have to defeat a West Johnston team that was 6-1 at home this season and had already defeated Knightdale at home in overtime earlier in the season, and after a slow start Garner jumped out to a big lead only to see West Johnston send the game to overtime, but the Trojans survived and hung on to win 70-62.
Garner was coming off a week layoff as they took a break to finish exams and it took a while for the Trojans to get rolling as West Johnston took a 14-12 lead after the first quarter.
But, as the first quarter ended Coach Gray had a stern message for his club and Garner responded on both ends of the floor as Garner scored 16 points in the second quarter while holding West Johnston to just one point in the second quarter to take a 28-15 lead into the locker room.
Garner's lead would continue to grow in the third quarter thanks to a very balanced effort, but as the game wore on, the Trojans' built up a 11 point lead after the third quarter, however, Garner was in some deep foul trouble and that would prove to be very costly late in the game.
West Johnston relied on the outside shot to climb back into the game in the fourth quarter as Mark Parker hit three big shots from beyond the arc and Shaq Dance also contributed with 16 second half points including 5 three pointer's to put the Wildcats right back in the game.
That's when things began to go south for the Trojans as both Emmanuel McClain and Gavin Wilson fouled out in the fourth quarter, and that lead to some offensive confusion late in the game for the Trojans and with Garner leading by two late in the fourth quarter, Ben Jacobs moved his way to the left baseline for a wide open lay up to tie the game at 52 as Garner's desperation heave was no good and the Trojans were playing their first overtime game of the year.
In the extra stanza, Garner dominated from the opening tip, thanks mainly to the play of Donald Johnson who went to the line a total of 21 times in the second half and overtime periods and of those 21, Johnson made 16 of his shots from the charity strip and after scoring just two points in the first half, Johnson scored 22 in the second half and overtime to lead the Trojans.
West Johnston, who was out the services of Jacob McNeill and Sean Johnson, who were both out due to injuries, had no match for the deeper Trojan bench and Garner began to pull away in overtime as they remained perfect in the conference with at 70-62 win over West Johnston.
Garner (8-6; 7-0) now leads the all-time series with West Johnston (8-6; 4-3) 11-2 and the Trojans will now prepare for a very difficult week as they will host Clayton on Tuesday night at 7:30 then travel to Knightdale on Friday also at 7:30.
Knightdale is currently second in the conference while Clayton is third.
Scoring:
GARNER: D. Johnson 24, J. McClain 15, G. Wilson 12, S. Drane 6, D. Anderson 6, M. Sloan 6, E. McClain 1.
W. Johnston: M. Parker 22, S. Dance 16, B. Jacobs 11, T. Davis 7, M. Fogg 6.
Varsity Girls Sweep Season Series With Wildcats
The Lady Trojans have had their ups and downs this year but on Friday night, Garner came out hitting on all cylinders and after scoring just seven points in the first quarter, the Lady Trojans came out on fire in the final three quarters.
Garner's lead grew to 21 points in the latter parts of the third quarter. West Johnston tried to battle back, but Garner was too much on this night as the Lady Trojans swept the season series from the Wildcats with at 51-39 win.
They are back at home on Tuesday night at 6:00 when they host Clayton.
