Sparks fly when Indians meet Volcanoes in Greenville
The Greenville Indians hosted the Chester Volcanoes on the newly refurbished courts at GHS on Jan. 17. The crowd was primed for a lively set of games and the young athletes provided.
The Chester girls were victorious in the match-up. While they trailed the Indians until the very end, the girls wound up winning 48-44. The Chester boys ran away with a big 74-51 victory.
Greenville vs. Chester – girls
The girls played first and really amped up the crowd. Greenville led the game for the first three periods, 13-9, 29-21 and then 36-31. However, the Volcanoes didn’t give up; they kept playing hard and in the final minutes of the last period of the game, they took the lead for the first and last time.
Both the Indians and the Volcanoes have some great shooters on their teams. Greenville’s Brown put in 14 big Indian points. Alexis Goodson and Ashlyn Bustamante each added 8 points to the GHS scoreboard while Bustamante’s tally included two spectacular, crowd-pleasing 3-pointers.
For the winning Volcanoes, Ashlyn Olah had an outstanding game scoring 20 points including two nice 3-pointers for CHS. Chancey Juska also had a great game scoring with a big 17 points.
Lori Crawford, CHS girls’ head basketball coach said, “Win or lose, I was just so proud of the way the girls played today.” Coach Crawford added, “The girls really came together as a team, like a family.”
Greenville vs. Chester – boys
The boys’ game started out the same way as the girls’ did, neck and neck, back and forth; it could have been anybody’s game.
The first period ended 18-16 with the Volcanoes in the lead. For those first three periods, the Vols outscored the Indians until the very last. GHS put twice the points on the board as the Vols in that final fourth period, but it was not enough for a Greenville victory.
Points on the board win the game, but there is no denying the thrill when athletes sink those 3-pointers. The Vols and the Indian shooters really hit their marks Jan. 17, and the crowd loved it.
Leading the Volcano boys to victory with the most points on the board was Devon Dye with 16. John Longacre was all over the court and made good use of his energy adding 15 points for the Vols, including a trio of 3-pointers. Returning to the court after an injury at the end of football season was senior Sawyer Durkin sinking 14 points, including two 3-pointers. Freshman Kameron Stelzriede included two long shots with his 8 points for the Vols.
Head Volcano boys’ coach Aaron Hardesty said, “We played good team basketball both offensively and defensively. Proud of the effort.”
That’s it for this season, the neighboring Vols and Indians won’t battle each other again until the 2018-19 season starts up with a whole new set of players mixed in.
A reminder: The Chester teams will be hosting their Tip Off this Friday, Jan. 26, against Redding, with the boys starting at 6 p.m. and the girls at 7:30 p.m.
