Royals victorious ... MV girls fall from unbeaten ranks

The annual (and often twice annual) matchups between Eastern Hancock and Greenfield-Central are often great, closely-contested games -- and the fact that they had split their last eight meetings shows that.

It was certainly the case tonight. EH pulled away to a 44-38 victory, but it was a close game throughout. The Royals scored eight points on the game's first three possessions, but G-C slowly worked its way back into the game and took two third-quarter leads. But EH's 3-point shooting -- the Royals hit seven 3s -- proved to be the difference.

Dustin Smith had 20 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the field (4-of-5 from deep) and 6-of-6 from the line. Not only did he hit triples on the Royals' first two possessions of the game, he also hit a big 3-pointer in the fourth quarter to help the Royals open up a lead, and then hit four late FTs to salt the game away. Zach Kissick and Jared Pyle had nine points each for the Royals.

G-C was led by Jared Morris' 19 points, as the junior guard had a very strong night shooting the ball and running the Cougars' patient offense.

The teams were lights-out shooting in the first half -- EH was 70%, G-C 67% -- but both cooled a bit after the break as the defenses ratcheted up.

An interesting sidelight: EH got its first victory over a county school this year in four tries -- but of the three previous ones, two were decided at the buzzer. G-C is 5-9 but still leads the Hoosier Heritage Conference. The Cougars have not won a game against a non-HHC foe this year, but are 5-2 against HHC teams (4-1 in conference games, 1-1 in the Hancock County Tourney).

Elsewhere:
Mt. Vernon's girls fell from the ranks of the unbeaten and saw their 35-game regular-season perfect streak end with a 38-35 loss at North Central. The Marauders are 18-1 and face Shenandoah on Thursday in the regular-season finale.

The Marauder boys played their fourth straight down-to-the-wire game tonight, but fell to Delta 54-52 on the road. MV is now 4-10 (1-4). MV's next game is Saturday at Warren Central.

New Palestine's girls dropped a 63-35 decision to Pendleton Heights. Lauren Tieman scored 12 for the Dragons (10-9/4-3).