WEB CAST.
Garner and Clayton battled in two epic regular season contests and on Friday night inside Trojan Coliseum they met, this time for the Conference Tournament Championship. However, it was a late Comet surge that sent Clayton over the edge with a 71-59 victory.
The Trojans (21-4) built an early 7-0 lead only to see Clayton (25-2) answer back to take a 20-17 lead after the first quarter. But to the credit of Garner they never faltered and came storming back on the strength of Foster Dubar who scored 14 of his career high 20 points in the first half to keep the Trojans hanging around and as the halftime buzzer sounded, the game was knotted at 31.
Coming out of the break, the men of Troy were firing on all cylinders building a six point lead on a pair of buckets from Demarcus Sanford (who finished with 19 points) and the Comets were forced to call a timeout with 4:46 remaining in the quarter.
Following the timeout, Clayton came back building a 48-43 lead after the quarter as Anthony Gaskins led the Comets with eight of his 26 points in the third quarter.
In the final stanza, the Comets, on the strength of Gary Clark who poured in 14 of his game-high 36 in the fourth quarter as Clayton built a nine point lead before the Trojans came answering back trimming the lead to one on several occasions but could never climb over the hump as Clayton pulled away and defeated Garner 71-59.
Garner will now await their seeding in the state playoffs which begin on Monday night at 7:00. Most likely at home.
