Grizzlies Earn Senior Night Win

The Grace Grizzlies boys basketball team celebrated their seniors during an early afternoon game last Saturday.  The Grizzlies have an unusually large group of seniors with eight total listed on their roster.  The eight seniors consisted of Braden Kimball, Jamie Smith, Derek Hill, Carson Reeves, Carson Welch, Landon Moss, Trevor Mathews, and Laxien VanGass.  Following the seniors being honored by getting escorted by their parents onto the court the boys had a great game where all seven of the dressed senior players got on the scoreboard.

For the game itself the Grizzlies hosted the Oakley Hornets.  Oakley entered the game boasting a record of 14-3 while flirting with a top five ranking.  The Grizzlies on the other hand have had a tumultuous season and entered the game with a 7-12 record.  However the win loss records do not tell the full story for these two teams.  The Hornets have enjoyed a relatively light schedule playing all 1A and 2A teams.  Meanwhile the Grizzlies have faced a mostly 3A schedule and even played some 4A teams.  The battle tested Grizzlies proved to be too much for the Hornets who looked more like paper tigers in this game.

Both teams started a little slow in the game with neither team scoring for the first two and a half minutes.  For the first quarter the Grizzlies stuck to just playing their seven dressed seniors who included for just the second time this season Trevor Mathews who has had to sit out most of the season with a back injury.  A fast paced first quarter with very few stoppages had the Grizzlies up by five to close the period out.  The second period was a big one for the Grizzlies.  High pressure trap defense by Grace led to several turnovers.  Grace took a five point first quarter lead and ballooned it to twenty-two point lead with eight different players scoring.  The rout was officially on.  In the third quarter the Grizzlies got a little too aggressive committing several fouls.  This slowed the pace of the game and allowed the Hornets to nearly match the Grizzlies in the period by getting to the charity stripe several times.  Grace did manage to build on their lead but only grew it by three more points.  In the fourth quarter the main focus for the Grizzlies was to get Mathews the ball and allow him to score on senior night.  This was accomplished a couple of minutes into the period to the delight of all Grizzly fans in attendance.  At about the midway point of the quarter Grace reached the mercy rule and a running clock kicked in.  The Grizzlies were able to get all seven seniors in the game during the period to allow them each one last turn to be on their home court.  The Grizzlies cruised to an easy victory winning by thirty three points.  The Grizzlies had an astonishing eleven players score in the game.

Grace has just one game left on their regular season schedule.  The Grizzlies will travel to their rival Butte County on Thursday to finish off their year before heading into the district tournament.  

Grizzlies 10 24 12 14 60

Hornets 5 7 9 6 27

D.Hill 6, J.Smith 14, B.Kimball 7, C.Reeves 6, C.Welch 2, L.Moss 2, T.Mathews 2, G.Draper 8, P.Yost 4, C.Smith 3, B.Smith 6