The Griswold Tigers benefited from a dominant second half effort en route to a 48-31 victory over the Sidney Cowboys Tuesday night. Despite it being a 20-19 game at half, Griswold stepped their foot on the gas and outscored Sidney 20-1 in the third quarter and never looked back. All night, the Tigers were stepping into passing lanes and using their size to their advantage. They turned what was a close game through two quarters into a blowout by the start of the fourth. Three Tigers finished in double digits in scoring which was the difference in the ball game. Great team basketball helped Griswold collect their second win of the season with the playoffs fast approaching.

The first half was fueled by an impressive performance from Dain Laverty, who poured in three three-pointers and added another two to lead all Tigers with 11 points at the half. Although they depended a lot on the performance of Laverty, it would require a collaborative effort to pull away later in the game. For Sidney it was very similar in the first half. Joseph Lutz was on fire to end the 2nd quarter which included a buzzer beater to pull within one point at half. He had 13 points in the first half. Griswold scored evenly between both of the first two quarters, scoring 10 points in each. The defense of the Tigers on everyone not named Joseph Lutz was a sign that all they had to do was stay consistent on the offensive end and put together a few defensive stops. Despite Griswold looking like the more well rounded team, it was still only a one point game.

To start the second half, it was apparent that Griswold went away from being a one man show and decided to get everyone involved. They also started to put together defensive stop and plenty of them. The defense they played was almost perfect, allowing only 1 point in the third quarter which came off of a singular free throw. Griswold combined the great defense with efficient offense, equaling their total from the first half in just the third quarter. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, the score had ballooned into 40-20 in favor of the Tigers. The biggest difference in the second half from the first was the involvement of Brayden Lockwood, who put up 14 points in the second half. Griswold ran a lot of offense through him that let Lockwood work near the rim and use a variety of layups to get to the rim. Sidney eventually ran out of gas after the third quarter and didn’t put up much fight in the fourth. Griswold cruised to a 48-31 victory for their 2nd win of the season. Head Coach Ryan Lockwood was pleased with his team’s effort and execution on Tuesday.

Coach Lockwood loved the ball movement paired with the effort shown by his guys:

He was proud of how Brayden Lockwood performed in the second half:

This win moves Griswold to 2-16 on the season. Their next matchup is against Stanton High School on Friday, February 6th at 7:30pm.