Thunderbirds bounce back; dump Warriors

After suffering its first loss of the season Friday, Eastern Greene came back and defeated Class 2A Sectional foe North Knox 69-50 in a high school boys basketball game at Little Cincinnati Saturday night.

The victory was the fourth in five games for the Thunderbirds while North Knox dropped to 2-3.

"It was nice to bounce back after a poor effort last night," Eastern Greene coach Andy Igel said of the 52-35 setback against Brown County. "We challenged the kids at walk through this morning to show some character and battle through adversity.

"We talked about playing with energy and they came with energy. This was a really nice win."

Balance was the word on offense for the T-Birds. Tyler Igel hit for 11 points, matching the point total of reserve Miles Hutchison. JT Yoho hit for 10 points while Cody Sparks scored nine (on three, 3-pointers) and Zack Johnson and Davis Russell each added eight for Eastern Greene, who jumped out to a 21-7 lead and never looked back.

"We shot the ball very well tonight," said Igel. "We had a lot of balance. We had three guys in double figures and three more that were right there.

"Our bench scoring was huge tonight. Sparks hit three threes and Hutchison had a nice effort off the bench. Tyler had another good game and (Zach) Ingram had a nice game on the boards."

Igel said it was critical to bounce back and nice to put up a season-best scoring total.

Their defense output was almost three points less than they give up on the season.

Eastern Greene won the junior-varsity contest 63-33. The junior T-Birds are now 5-0.

EGHS will play a pair of home games next weekend. They will face Martinsville Friday and then Paoli Saturday.

Saturday

NORTH KNOX (50) -- Brolin Summers 3 1-1 7, Evan Hill 1 0-0 2, Ryan Reedy 0 0-0 0, Jack McKinnon 2 3-5 7, John Gregg 0 2-2 2, Richard Gugliotta 5 5-6 16, Jonathan Blann 1 0-0 2, Tyler Sanders 4 2-3 12, Alsman 1 0-0 2. Totals 17 8-17 50.

EASTERN GREENE (69) -- Zack Johnson 3 2-3 8, Zach Ingram 2 2-3 6, Tyler Igel 4 2-2 11, Davis Russell 4 0-0 8, JT Yoho 4 2-2 10, Cody Sparks 3 0-0 9, Sam Jacob 0 0-0 0, Miles Hutchison 5 1-2 11, Logan Hash 2 0-0 4, Nathan Cobine 1 0-0 2, Brody Martin 0 0-0 0, Blake Crowe 0 0-0 0, Nate Higgins 0 0-0 0. Totals 28 9-12 69.

North Knox 7 19 9 15 -- 50

Eastern Greene 21 16 16 16 -- 69

3-pointer -- North Knox 3 (Sanders 2, Gugliotta). Eastern Greene 4 (Sparks 3, Igel). Fouls -- North Knox 16, Eastern Greene 18. Fouled out -- Hill.