Sluggish Warriors sweep Pike Lib

There was certainly nothing pretty about Lee-Scott’s top-ranked girls and fourth-ranked boys performances Tuesday.

But ugly outings aside, the most important thing was each team’s final score — something that wasn’t ugly for the Warriors.

The Lee-Scott girls pulled out to a big lead in the first half, but never seemed it’s normal dominant self in a 40-22 win.

The Warriors’ boys failed to get on track for the game’s full four quarters, but still survived Pike Liberal Arts, 39-34.

Both LSA teams were playing their first games since the holiday break, but head coach Chad Prewett said he didn’t think that was the reason for the Warriors’ sluggish night.

“I wish we could blame tonight on that, but we’ve been practicing,” Prewett said of coming back from the holidays.

“We had a couple of days off, but not much — maybe we practices them too hard ... I don’t know.”

The boys game was about as back-and-forth as one could ask.

In fact, Lee-Scott took a 3-2 lead on a Tucker Carl 3-pointer three minutes in and never trailed again — but also never led by more than 8 points at any given time.

With normal starting point guard Garrett Dyas out with an injury sustained in a holiday tournament, LSA’s offense never got in sync.

The Warriors committed a gym-full of turnovers, including four on its first four possessions and a flurry of miscues late that nearly allowed the Patriots to rally for the win.

The saving grace for Lee-Scott was the fact Pike had a horrid night at the foul line and an equally ice cold night from the field.

“When Garrett is not in there the tempo changes for us,” Prewett said. “We shot the ball bad tonight , and we’re a good shooting team and we were doing things tonight we don’t normally do for some reason.

“We really went backward tonight to be honest.”

Carl led Lee-Scott (12-3) with 11 points, while William Webster added 8.

The LSA girls game wasn’t nearly as close, but still not the punishing game most have come to witness this year from the one-loss Warriors (14-1).

After falling behind, 4-0, LSA outscored the Patriots, 12-2 over the final 5:26 of the first. The Warriors followed that up by outscoring Pike, 13-2, in the second quarter to lead by 16 at the half.

But the big first half didn’t overshadow some major rough spots for the Warriors.

LSA struggled on the boards through stretches and also had a bad night with close-in shots — many which went wild off the backboard.

Those same struggles continued in the second half — a big reason LSA couldn’t pull further ahead than it finished.

But for Prewett, the win was a little better than his team’s last outing against Pike — one in which LSA had to hit a last-second shot to stave off the upset.

“I felt like we had control most of the game, and once we did we didn’t really press a whole bunch,” Prewett said. “But we didn’t shoot it well at all.

“I think not going to school today — a lot of things — factored into both of us being out of sorts. At least that’s what I’m hoping was the case tonight.”

Both LSA teams return to the court on Friday at Macon-East.

tpeavy@oanow.com | 737-2568