Pace Academy Spoils Lovett Celebration With 68-48 Win
On Friday, the rivalry continued as the Lovett Lions boys basketball team hosted the Pace Academy Knights on a night in which the Lions celebrated junior guard, Christian Anderson Jr., for surpassing 1,500 career points and becoming the school’s all-time scoring leader. With a standing room only crowd on hand, Anderson Jr., who finished with 38 points, would ignite the crowd after knocking down the first basket of the game. Later, with the Lions down by three points, the crowd would erupt again as Anderson Jr. would knock down a three point basket to tie the game at five all.
The Knights would quickly adjust and pick things up on the defensive end of the court and thanks to a Lovett turnover that led to a Kyle Greene Jr. (19 points) dunk to give Pace a 7-5 lead, Pace would close out the quarter on a 15-4 run to take a 20-9 lead at the end of the period. The Knights would outpace the Lions throughout the second quarter, extending their lead and take a 37-19 lead into the locker room at the half. In the third quarter, after trailing by as many as 20 points, Anderson would and the Lions would on an 11-2 run to cut the Pace lead down to 11 points, however, thanks to more defensive pressure, the Knights would close out the period up by 17 points as they led 49-32.
And while the fourth quarter would see Lovett playing their closest period of play with Pace, they would still be outscored 19-16 in the final period of play falling to the Knights 68-48. “Coming into this game, we knew it was going to be a hostile atmosphere,” Greene said of their rivalry match-up with Lovett on Friday. “A rivalry game always brings the game up to the highest levels of intensity,” Greene added in regards to the magnitude of the atmosphere whenever the two teams meet. “We had to punch them first and not wait to get hit,” Greene said of the Knights’ approach to facing the Lions. Greene added that he and teammates knew that they would also have to be intentional on setting a defensive tone for the game as well.
“They’re a high scoring team. Christian Anderson is a great player, a great scorer so we knew we had to lock in on him and Kyle Walters, he’s a great scorer too so we had to lock in on those two and make sure we limited their opportunities and if we did that, we knew we would score on the other end,” Greene said.
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