Greenbrier knocks off Greenwood boys

By Landon Willmuth
UCA sportswriting

Greenbrier’s Panthers defeated the Greenwood Bulldogs, 63-52, Friday night in a 5A-West conference game at Panther Pavilion.

Although both teams came in with losing records, any game in the 5A-West is is going to be a battle. The Panthers seized the opportunity, coming away with the win.

Greenbrier never trailed in the game and leaned heavily on junior Neal Burcham’s 32 points.

“He was not double- and triple-teamed this game like he normally is, so we just ran everything through him,” Greenbrier coach Jason Johnson said. “He was just getting good looks, scoring inside and outside with his 3-pointer."

As time was running out at the end of the first half, the Bulldogs heaved an improbable half-court shot to bring them within 12 points of the Panthers. Normally shots like this can have huge momentum swings for a team, but it did not seem to faze the Panthers.

"It was a very impressive shot, but our kids came out executing the same way we had in the first half,” Johnson said. "It truly did not affect the way our team played."

Greenwood made a run in the fourth quarter, but the Panthers stayed strong and held off the Bulldogs' late surge to pull off the win at home.

The Panthers seemed to shoot the ball very effectively and leaned heavily on Burcham. He was practically unstoppable and shot a very high percentage from the field.

“Neal had a very good game for us, and we realized early that he was going to be getting good looks so we just kept feeding him the ball,” Johnson said.

The Panthers (11-12 overall, 3-8 in conference play) will be back in action at home on Tuesday night against 5A-West foe Morrilton.