Warriors fall to Longhorns in opening round of district tourney
Published 12:37 am Thursday, February 18, 2021
StarPhoto/Larry N. Souders The Warriors Blake Young (25) starts to drive into the lane, but kicks out a pass to Landon Babb (32) instead early in the third quarter.
StarPhoto/Larry N. Souders The Warriors Blake Young (25) hits a runner in the lane over the out stretched are of Johnson County’s Zack Parsons (30) in the third quarter.
StarPhoto/Larry N. Souders The Warriors Alex Lunceford (33) and Johnson County’s Trevor Gentry (34) give chase to a loose ball, both hitting the ground with Lunceford rolling up on Gentry left leg late in the third quarter. Lunceford was called for a foul, while Gentry got up limping at the end of the play, he was able to continue in the game.
StarPhoto/Larry N. Souders The Warriors Blake Garmon (30) goes hard to the rack and tries to slam the ball home on a breakaway mid-way through the fourth quarter.
StarPhoto/Larry N. Souders The Warriors Alex Lunceford (33) looks to finish a fastbreak with a layup early in the fourth quarter.
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BY NIC MILLER
STAR CORRESPONDENT
MOUNTAIN CITY – With the regular season wrapped up for teams across the area, it was time to begin district tournament play in Northeast Tennessee.
The site for opening action in the tournament was Johnson County High School, and it would be the Longhorns out of Mountain City playing host to the Happy Valley Warriors.
After the long drive from one end of Carter County and past the other, the Warriors came out of the gate on fire. But that wouldn’t last long as the Longhorns would quickly take the lead to end the first stanza, 23-9.
It was a competitive quarter in the second period as both teams were able to keep up with each other in scoring, but due to the early lead in the first for Johnson County, the Longhorns would go up by a score of 35-23.
With both teams returning back to the court after the halftime intermission, the third quarter of action would see the Longhorns begin to pour it on in terms of scoring. The score going into the home stretch was a lopsided 60-30 in favor of the Longhorns.
And things didn’t get much better in the final quarter of play as Johnson County would roll to the victory by a huge margin, 72-37.
In the win for the Longhorns, Jackson Earnhardt led his team to the victory scoring 25 points, while Clayton Cross followed with 13 of his own, and Ethan Towers contributed with 11 points in the game.
For the Warriors, Alex Lunceford was the leading scorer with nine points followed by Blake Young who put up eight and Timmy Mounters who contributed to the cause with seven of his own.
With the loss, it marks the end of the 2020-21 season for the Happy Valley Warriors.
