Strong second half leads Riverwood to 'Senior Night' win, behind JR Leonard's 43 points
It has been somewhat of an up and down season for the defending Georgia High School Association Class 6A State Champions, the Riverwood Raiders, who entered their region showdown with the Lassiter Trojans on senior night at 13-9 overall and 9-3 in the region standings.
With Friday providing Riverwood an opportunity to give the Raiders' seniors one final regular season home win, the Trojans came out looking to play spoiler as they led the entire first quarter, going up by as many as six points before Riverwood with get within two points by the quarter's end.
In the second quarter, with senior JR Leonard, leading the way for the Raiders with eight of his 43 points on the night coming in the period, Riverwood would outscore Lassiter 15-6, taking a 32-16 lead into the locker room at the half. As the third quarter got underway, the Raiders would get good execution on both ends of the court, as they would outscore the Trojans 27-10, increasing their lead to 24 points, while Leonard would score 22 points in the quarter.
And while Lassiter would win the final quarter of play, it would not be by enough to overcome the 24-point deficit as Riverwood would close out with the 64-43 win to end their senior night celebration. "It's really emotional," Riverwood head coach, Buck Jenkins, said after the win on Friday.
"This group is the group that we won a championship with and to see them go out, I'm glad we got the win, but bitter sweet because I know that the season is winding down to the end," Jenkins said as he shared his thoughts on what the win means for his senior group of players and the adjustments they made to overcome the early first quarter deficit.
"The biggest adjustment was defensively. We decided to pick up more energy on defense, apply more pressure, get in the passing lane, kind of get some easy buckets and I think that led to us pulling away a little bit," Jenkins said. Riverwood returns to action Saturday as they will look for their third straight win on the road at Woodstock.
