Gibson Co. boys pick up 4th straight win

Four games into the 2015-16 season, the Gibson County boys’ basketball team has stepped up in competition each time the Pioneers have taken the court.
Middleton has been the toughest team that Gibson County faced, but on Friday, the Pioneers were up to that task, too.
Gibson County scored 27 points in the third quarter to build a big enough lead to beat the Tigers 66-62 in the Zaxby’s Thanksgiving Tournament at University School of Jackson.
“Each night we have come out and met the challenge against a tougher team,” Gibson County coach Justin Lowery said. “We talked before this game that this was the toughest team we have played thus far. We had to come out and play mentally tough for four quarters.”
Gibson County (4-0) will have to play even better on Saturday in the championship of the tournament against another undefeated team in USJ at 7:30 p.m. Middleton (2-2) faces Jackson Central-Merry in the consolation game at 4 p.m.
Peyton Holt led the offensive effort for the Pioneers with 21 points, while Pierce Holt added 17 points.
“We knew that they were going to be more athletic and faster, so we had to be more physical and smarter,” Peyton Holt said.
The loss was the second in a row for the Tigers, who lost to Fayette-Ware in overtime on Tuesday.
Middleton scored 80 points against Fayette-Ware, but on Friday, the Tigers were held to 17 points in the first half.
“We did a good job on defense working together,” Lowery said. “We could have done better in the second half in our half-court defense, but the full-court defense picked up.”
Gibson County played stingy defense that didn’t give up many easy baskets to Middleton in the first 16 minutes.
“We were reading their eyes, getting in the passing lanes to get turnovers and capitalizing on them,” Peyton Holt said.
The Pioneers though couldn’t get much going either offensively in the first half, but the third quarter was much different as Gibson County hit 11 field goals on the way to scoring 27 points.
Peyton Holt scored 11 in that quarter, including two of his four 3-pointers.
“We were sharing the ball and moving the ball around,” Peyton Holt said. “When we found the open shot, we were hitting them.”
Middleton did get the offense going in the fourth quarter with 30 points. The Tigers got Gibson County’s lead down to seven points (59-52) with 1:31 remaining, but turnovers and fouls helped the Pioneers keep the lead until 3-pointers by Rodrigeus Robinson and Leqon Perry hit 3-pointers with under 15 seconds to go to cut the Pioneers’ lead to the final score.
“We got rattled and called a timeout,” Lowery said. “We talked about what we wanted to do on the offensive end, and that was only getting layups.”
Michael Odom, 425-9754