by Ben Gaines
The Greenwich Witches road into Hoosick Falls Friday evening to avenge the December 12 54-37 loss to the Panthers. But first, Greenwich Coach Duke Beck watched as the Panther JV worked their own magic to win 59-26.
In the varsity game from the opening tip, won by Greenwich, to the end of the first quarter the fans could tell this was a game they would not soon forget. The first quarter ended 5 – 4 with the Witches up by 1.
It was Johnny Whitman who drained two three-pointers to give the Panthers their first lead of the game with 1:45 left in the second quarter. Coach Lilac wanted to run the clock down for a last shot attempt in the half, but Falls could not break down the Witches’ defense in the remaining 10 seconds, and the half ended HFCS 14 – GCS 13.
The Witches took a little extra time in the locker room during the break and seemed to put the finishing touches on the spellbound Panthers. The Witches nearly doubled their score with 10 in the third quarter. The Witches’ Carruthers had 4, Oswald, 2, Winch, 2, and Barnes, 2, while Falls could only answer with 3. The quarter ended Greenwich 23 – Panthers 17.
The final quarter was a shooting frenzy for the Panthers but there were more misses than hits. The Panthers had 24 missed shots and ten offensive turnovers during the game.
Possibly the most disturbing time in the game happened after senior Chris LaCroix came into the game. LaCroix left the December 7 game with a dislocated shoulder. “I’ll be having repair surgery February 6 and plan to play a couple of minutes in the Senior Game,” LaCroix said prior to tonight’s game. He hit his first screen 28 seconds into the game when he ran into Barnes. He went to the floor and jumped back up. The second collision was the last. LaCroix went down and only got back to his knees. He was hitting his upper arm and then lifted the arm to reset the shoulder. Like a trooper he ran down to the Greenwich end and tried to play ball, but the refs could see something was wrong and whistled the ball dead. The sight was too disturbing and several fans left the game.
Scoring for the Panthers were Randy Tutunjian and John Whitman with 6 points each, Levi Brewster and Austin Pitt with 4 each, Evan Phillips with 3 and Andrew Hoag with 2 points in the 37 – 25 loss to Greenwich.
The Panthers’ next game is on Friday the 25th in Granville at 7 pm.
