Friday night redux

Great night at Greenfield-Central tonight.

First off, homecoming festivities and the MV-GC rivalry brought an enormous crowd to Cougar Gym. Second of all, G-C retired the baseball number of 2006 grad Kyle Gibson, ace pitcher for two sectional champions, a regional championship and a first-round Minnesota Twins draft pick last summer. Kyle will do very well in his baseball career and in life. it was nice to see him honored. I've been honored to broadcast a few games with him over the years on WRGF. Once his pitching career is over, he'll be a tremendous broadcaster if he so chooses that route. Kyle also joined us for a few minutes on our halftime show -- listen to the archive to hear what he had to say.

Back to basketball. Greenfield-Central played a great first half tonight ... the fans were energized and the Cougars were, too. However, Mt. Vernon was able to use its strength inside and that keyed a 15-2 third-quarter run that essentially provided the margin in the Marauders' 58-43 victory.

G-C's team executed its gameplan of patience, patience, patience rather perfectly early. It took a while for the shots to go down -- MV led 13-2 until Derek Conley's off-balance 3 went in at the first-quarter buzzer. However, the Cougars' shots started going down, the defense picked up, and that lead got whittled down and down until it was 22-20 at half. MV then started punching the ball inside to Daniel Turner & D'Armond Davis, who combined for 17 second-half points, and they keyed that big third-quarter run, either on post moves, putbacks or kick-outs to Tyler Stafford and P.J. Hubert for 3s.

MV is now 9-2 (3-0) headed into Saturday's game at New Castle. G-C is 2-8 (0-3) headed into next Friday's game at Heritage Christian. The Cougars' record is deceiving -- they've played some good teams and they've played several very close games so far.

Three double-figure scorers for both teams -- Turner & Stafford with 14 each for MV, Hubert with 12. Derek Conley & Tyler Stone with 12 each for G-C, Wes McQueeney with 10. Stone, a 6-6 sophomore, looks more and more impressive every time we see him. He made some really nice one-on-one moves against Davis tonight.

Also a successful night for the other Hancock County teams. New Palestine (5-4) beat Delta 46-32, while Eastern Hancock (7-3) beat Muncie Burris 67-47.

Next week's Game of the Week is Friday night, as the Marauders take on HHC foe Rushville (4-4/2-2). Tipoff is 7:30, airtime approximately 7:10 from Mt. Vernon's new gymasium. Listen at www.audiosportsonline.net/Crossroads/2009Basketball.htm