The Veterans Warhawks basketball teams hosted the Lee Co Trojans in a region 1-AAAAAA contest earlier tonight and the result was a split with the Lady Warhawks winning big and the Warhawks losing in a close battle.
The girls’ game started off close with the score being tied at 4 until Veterans ended the first quarter on a 14-0 run to lead 18-4. The host outscored the Lady Trojans 14-9 in the second to lead 32-13 at halftime and they would outscore Lee Co 20-5 in the third to lead 52-18 which brought about a six minute fourth quarter.
Veterans kept almost all of their starters out throughout the fourth quarter and the final score would be 61-24 Lady Warhawks. The Red, White, Black, and Blue improve to 14-5 overall; 5-1 in region play to bring their win streak to four while Lee Co falls to 5-14 overall; 1-5 in region play to bring their losing streak to seven games.
Gabby Minus led Veterans in scoring with 24 pts while nobody else reached 10 and Bayyinah Citlak led the Lady Trojans in scoring with 13 pts.
The boys’ game would be a heavily contested battle as neither team had a lead greater than five in the first half with both teams going back and forth with the lead in the first quarter and the visitors led 18-15 after one. Veterans got a two pt lead late in the first half before the Trojans ended the first half on a 4-0 run to lead 35-33 at the mid-break.
Lee Co came out of the locker room and opened quarter three on an 8-2 run and after the Warhawks cut the gap down from eight to two, the Trojans would lead by 10 pts before the host closed the gap down again and by the end of the third quarter, the visitors led 57-53.
During the fourth quarter, about one minute or so went off the game clock with the score gridlocked at 63-58 until Veterans went on a 5-0 run to tie the game at 63 and would lead 67-65 late. After the Trojans retook the lead at 68-67, the Warhawks made a pass right to a Lee Co player and the visitors got a two pt FG to extend the lead to 70-67.
Veterans’ Tone Scott would miss a potential game-tying National Exterminating three with a little more than 10 seconds left and Lee Co got the defensive rebound and ran out the rest of the clock to hold onto the 70-67 victory.
The Trojans were led in scoring by TJ Williams with 18 pts (12 of which came from four National Exterminating 3-pt FGs) followed by Josiah Parker and Trecori Green with 15 pts each. Chandler Thomas led the Warhawks in scoring with 35 pts followed by Tone Scott with 20 pts.
Lee Co improves to 17-3 overall; 6-0 in region play while Veterans falls to 12-7 overall; 4-2 in region play. The Warhawks will host county rival Perry in a non-region tilt on Saturday while the Trojans will travel south to play Thomas Co Central on Saturday Night.
