Amber Gaston scored 11 points with four rebounds and five blocks in Warren Central’s 47-38 win against Greenville-Wesson Friday night.

Warren Central (17-8, 2-3 Region 4 6A) coach Jackie Martin-Glass wanted to contain the play of Greenville’s (15-10, 3-3) Tenisha Miller, who finished the game with just nine points.

“The last time we played them at home in Greenville, they didn’t have her and she’s a real key player. The game plan was to keep her from driving, shoot the three; she’s pretty much a versatile player,” Martin-Glass said.

After ending the first quarter down 11-10, the Lady Vikes sailed to victory. Warren Central outscored the Honeybees in the second and third quarters putting the game out reach with a 33-23 lead heading into the fourth.

Martin-Glass said her team was able to do so by executing on offense and not wasting possessions. She harped on them about the importance of every possession.

“You can’t go down and get empty possessions and we’re not getting any points. My whole thing was try to get down, execute a good play and we were able to finish around the goal a lot,” Martin-Glass said.

When the Lady Vikes took the lead it forced the Honeybees to play man-to-man defense, which opened up the lane for easy baskets at the rim.

Warren Central also got another spark from Aniya Sanders, an eighth-grader who was called up by Martin-Glass.

In Sanders’ first game with the Lady Vikes she provided the team with eight points and six rebounds off the bench.

“I always look down to see what’s below me. I remember last year that she was a good finisher. She could leap and has some jumping abilities and that’s where we’re pretty weak at sometimes. She still made some errors but I think she did really, really well in her first game.”

 

(B) Greenville 61, Warren Central 52

Shaun Walton had a game-high 30 points, four rebounds in Warren Central’s (11-13, 2-3 Region 4 6A) 61-52 loss to Greenville (21-4, 5-1).

Walton was aggressive throughout the entire game and sacrificed his body to put points on the board. He converted a four-point play with three minutes left in the third quarter and scored two 3s in the fourth quarter to cut the Vikings deficit to single digits.

The Hornets had four players score in double digits as Desharen Flowers scoring a team-high 15 points. Eric Brown contributed 13 points, Eric Grossley added 12 and Nate Watkins scored 10.

“I think it’s one of those late February district battles, two teams sparing for position in the district tournament,” Warren Central coach Bruce Robinson said. “They’re tough and they’re physical and we’re kind of a finesse, jump shooting team, which is what we do.”

Warren Central trailed 16-8 at the end of the first quarter and would later cut the game to single digits in the fourth quarter from Walton’s effort.

Robinson said the Vikings couldn’t get any rhythm in the first half and ball movement was stale and one sided. When Warren Central would miss shots, Greenville would turn it into transition points on the other end.

“They shot a couple of 3s early on. I think that’s how they were able to get that lead where they could score and we couldn’t,” Robinson said.

Rebounding was the nail in the Vikings’ coffin as the team grabbed about 10 boards. The Hornets converted a lot of Warren Central’s missed rebounding opportunities into second chance points.

“If we put a little bit more effort in we could get some of those rebounds,” Robinson said. “They just wanted rebounds more and put it in their heads that they could really win that game in the paint and they did.”