It’s hard to ever deny the effort of the Spring Garden basketball program, who have consistently given themselves every opportunity throughout the past decade to improve upon the strong foundation past teams have laid out for the Panther pride. That was no different Tuesday night, as both the girls and boys teams entered with their heads held high under the leadership of Coach Ricky Austin, and used that approach in mentality to earn a pair of big area wins against the rival Thunder of Jacksonville Christian Academy.
Starting on the girls side, where the Spring Garden Lady Panthers finished with a decisive 71-38 win over their Class 1A, Area 10 foes. Leading Spring Garden to the victory on the points end, Macy Reedy lead the Lady Panthers with 15 points, 3 assists, and 2 rebounds along with 3 steals, followed closely by Jodi Dempsey with a 14/3/2/2 line of her own, and a solid 6 rebound effort from Tiyonna Rogers that also included 12 points and 4 steals. For JCA, it was still an impressive nice for Megan Barnes who lead all scorers on both teams with 18 points, also accounting for 4 assists, 7 rebounds, and 1 steal to go along with her solid night. With the win, the Panthers, who show themselves as the #3 ranked team in the ASWA Class 1A poll, improve to 15-6 on the season and a remarkable 7-0 mark in area play. The Thunder, meanwhile, fall to 6-7 on the season overall and 3-3 in Area 10 match-ups.
Moving over to the boys end of things now, Spring Garden’s men took the momentum of the girls action and improved upon it where they could, helping themselves to an 89-46 victory over Jacksonville Christian. The Panthers had a quad group of double digits scorers on the night, but only one to get into the 20 mark as Riley Austin finished with 27 points, 7 assists, and 8 rebounds to cap off his big evening. Behind Austin was Dylan Rogers with a 17 point performance that included 6 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal, and a pair of 16 point scorers as Draevan Bowman (2 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals) and Joseph Rogers (4 assists, 1 rebound, 2 steals) also gave nice performances to put together with the rest of the Panthers for their win.
On Jacksonville Christian’s side, they had a pair of big scorers, those being Kaleb Murphy who ended with a team leading 13 points and 6 rebounds, and then there was Walker Messer who racked up 12 points, 3 assists, and 3 rebounds for his night. The #9 ranked Panthers improve to 11-8 overall and 5-2 in the area with their win, while JCA’s record falls to 6-9 with a 1-6 in Class 1A, Area 10.
Spring Garden’s next games will come Thursday night when they travel to Faith Christian, while JCA also continues competition on Thursday when they head to Sacred Heart.
As for WEIS, our next broadcast will be coming your way Friday night at 6pm as we will be heading to Cherokee County High School to watch the Warriors take on area foe White Plains. We appreciate Spring Garden High School for hosting us Tuesday evening, and hope the Panthers continue on with their success as the season comes closer to the end.