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Greenwood falls, season concludes

LEBANON — It wasn’t the start that any coach would ever want in a high school basketball game, especially one of this magnitude.

In the District 3 Class A consolation bracket at Lebanon High School Monday night, the Lancaster Country Day Cougars jumped out to a 13-0 advantage in the first quarter, and held on despite several runs by Greenwood to earn a 53-40 victory and a guaranteed spot in the PIAA tournament.

Greenwood, which saw the Cougars score 53 in a loss in their Tri-Valley League, regular-season meeting, ends its season.

Lancaster Country Day (16-8) hit half of its six treys in the first quarter during that opening 5:35 run before Greenwood’s Donovan Ogden, who finished with nine points on the evening, hit a foul shot and a bucket to start a nine-point run that stretched into the second quarter.

But every time the Wildcats got close, the Cougars would go on a run of their own.

“That (opening run) buried us,” Greenwood coach Kent Houser said. “We struggle to score anyways, but to get in that big of a hole is really difficult for us to overcome.”

Still, Greenwood (12-13) never quit. Behind junior Austin Morder’s eight points in the second quarter, the Wildcats cut the lead to seven by halftime. After the break, Houser and his staff refocused the team on its offensive goals, and the players responded by taking fewer outside shots in the second half and found lanes to the bucket.

“That really had been our focus all week in practice, we just didn’t do a really good job of it in the first half,” Houser said. “I think it was just a matter of we just started playing harder and when you play harder you’re going to get to the hole a little better.”

Despite playing harder, Greenwood struggled defensively and could not find an answer for Lancaster Country Day’s senior captain Tayler Eynon, who led all scorers with 25 points. His teammate, sophomore Andrew Williams, tacked on 14.

“Hopefully we learned tonight that we have to defend every possession, and we didn’t do that tonight and that was really the big problem in the game,” Houser said. “We’re much better defensively than that.”

With the victory, Lancaster Country Day, the No. 3 seed in Class A, advances in the consolation bracket to play High Point Baptist, which defeated Harrisburg Christian School 61-54.

For Houser’s club however, the season comes to an abrupt end. With three seniors on the roster, one of whom is injured, his young team gained some valuable playoff experience that will be valuable as the Wildcats now turn their sights to next season.

“It’s a young group and hopefully we gained a lot of experience this year and that’s going to carry forth so we’re starting a little ahead of the game next year, and hopefully they learned in particularly what playoff basketball is about,” Houser said. “We talked the last game we had to come from behind because we didn’t come out and play hard as you need to play. Playoffs are a different animal and I thought again tonight that we did not come out and play hard enough.”

Greenwood was led by senior Grant Sarver, who scored a team-high 10 points in his final game for the Wildcats.

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