Volunteer at Grainger County Basketball Article

Rutledge- The Volunteer Falcons traveled to Grainger County Friday night to take on another district foe in back to back weeks. Four games were played and two of them were taken by the Falcons. The Junior Varsity squads went one for one for the night with the JV Boys defeating the Grizzlies. Later on, the Junior Varsity Girls found themselves on the bad end of things losing to the Lady Grizzlies. Both of those games really set the tone for how the rest of the night would play out. 

     Grainger County has become a regular opponent in the past eight years since district realignment and scheduling has changed causing a fun rivalry to blossom. Depending on who you ask around the area these teams meeting up, whether it's on the hardwood or the grass fields, has some importance to it and a rivalry-like feel which will only get better with time since these schools are so similar.

     The varsity Girls took the floor first as the varsity games started for the night. The Lady Falcons, coming off an impressive win over Cherokee and Unicoi County, looked to keep up their winning ways and go 2-0 in district. The Lady Falcons did nothing but play their brand of basketball. With their lockdown defense they held the Lady Grizzlies to only 32 points the entire game. They forced the Lady Grizzlies to take low percentage shots and forced them to work the perimeter and force turnovers. When the Lady Grizzlies did have a good look at a shot they would not be able to convert it and the Lady Falcons would crash the boards and get the defensive rebounds. The Lady Falcons improved to 6-4 on the season and 2-0 in district play with the impressive road with the final score being 47-32. 

     Shortly after the Lady Falcons victory, the varsity boys took to the hardwood looking for their third win of the season and to try to go 2-0 in district play. The Falcons were looking to bounce back from their mid-week loss and get back into the win-column after dropping a game to Unicoi. Volunteer needed to have a great game on both sides of the ball as this game was physical and at times lopsided. Volunteer found themselves in a close game through most of the first period until Grainger started pulling away in the later part of the first and well into the second period. The Falcons were able to come back right before half and make the score 21-20 as the Grizzlies were up. 

     The second half would tell another story as the Falcons were not able to get anything going offensively or defensively. Turnovers would prove costly as the grizzlies would take advantage of it and pull away and keep a ten point lead through parts of the third. However, the Falcons would find a spark on offense and create some turnovers and get within four points, but the Grizzlies would fight back even harder and pull away late as the Falcons could get their shots to fall. The Falcons fell to the Grizzlies 58-43 to fall to 2-10 for the season and 1-1 in district play. 

     Keep an eye on all of our social media platforms and website about information, stats, and other posts. We will also be posting when we will be doing another live play by play radio show covering the basketball team. You can always listen to us live and free on the Mixlr app.