By Wil Crews
sportscrews@opelikaobserver.com
The Lee-Scott Varsity Boys basketball team improved its record to 4-5 after splitting two games this past week.
The Warriors began the week by travelling to face Lakeside High School. From start to finish it was a dominant performance from LSA, who secured a statement 53-29 win. The Warriors started the game on fire and stretched their lead to 17 after one quarter. The scoring slowed a little in the second quarter, but LSA’s lockdown defense helped the Warriors increase their lead to 28 points. After the halftime break, the Warriors let their foot off the gas and were outscored in the second half. But the lead the Warriors built in the first half was out of harm’s way as LSA held Lakeside to just 17.8% shooting from the field.
The Warriors spread out the scoring as Joseph Horne led the way with 12 points and added a team-high five rebounds and two assists to his stat line. Hutch Sprayberry shot 50% on his way to 10 points, and Carter Blackmon followed right behind him with 9 points on 80% shooting. John Wang finished with 8 points. Dylan Hickman put in 5 points – making his only three-point attempt – and four rebounds. Carson Alexander had an off night offensively, finishing with just 4 points, but he led the team with three assists. Payne Weissinger chipped in 3 points and Conner Burnett 1 to finish the Warriors’ scoring.
Next, the Warriors hosted Southland High School from Georgia in their second game of the week. The hard-fought game was ultimately decided in the third quarter, and LSA lost 46-40. The warriors held a two-point advantage going into halftime, but were outscored 13-5 in the third period to surrender their lead. Neither team could separate any more in the fourth quarter, as the Warriors and Southland matched each other with 10 points. The difference in the game was the turnovers. Southland turned over the Warriors 22 times, and committed just nine themselves. While LSA shot better from the field overall (41.9% compared to Southland’s 31.2%) the extra turnovers afforded Southland more possessions and in turn, more points.
Alexander led the way for the Warriors in the losing effort with 24 points and eight rebounds on 70% shooting. Sprayberry was second in scoring with 9 points; Horne was next with 6; Weissinger finished with 3 points, four rebounds and a team-high 3 assists; and Wang rounded out the scoring making one of his two free throw attempts.
According to the school’s website, the LSA Varsity Boys basketball team played in a tournament at Fort Dale Academy on Dec. 18-19. Results were not available at time of press.