It was a relentless standoff on defense for the Rangers that allowed them to come up with easy transition scoring chances and the opportunity to take an early lead.

JV boys basketball toppled Greenville 64-25 on Tuesday night in a high flying and up tempo battle between the two sides. Throughout the night, the Rangers were able to create a cushion thanks to breakaway buckets and big stops at the other end. FHC kicked it into gear right away, engaging in a full court press with two defenders trapping the ball and causing turnovers and offensive confusion for the Scots. FHC’s superior height and size played a significant role in the game, allowing them to overpower the Scots on the glass. The agility of FHC’s bigs allowed them to create a lot of different mismatches on the offensive end. Typically, any team with a large led takes their foot off of the pedal. On Tuesday night, however, this was not the case for head coach James Telman and his crew. Greenville attacked the basket hard, but the FHC defense stood strong. Josh Wise and several other bigs crashed the glass well and came up with big plays defensively. Josh recognized their efficiency on defense and credited his other teammates for communicating well during the game.

“We communicated really well on help defense tonight,” Josh said. “We made sure that we had people back on help defense rotating around. I think that was really the key for us.”

It was not just a strong defensive night, though, that put the Rangers over the top. FHC capitalized well on their open opportunities and converted from the field. Tate Hallock added some flare to the attack after flushing a nice one-handed dunk on a breakaway that wowed both sides of the gymnasium. Sophomore Brandon Kirkman was 3 for 4 from behind the arc and finished with 9 points on the night. Brandon was happy about the way that the team played and believed that they were going to continue to keep up the momentum.

“We knew that they played a zone defense, so we really tried to spread things out,” Brandon said. “We talked a lot better than we have been lately, and our passing was really good. We had a lot of open looks and chances to score.”

The Rangers fought hard all night despite maintaining a large lead throughout regulation. Overall, the Rangers fought hard through four quarters and allowed everyone to grab some playing time. Telman was extremely satisfied with the way that his side performed.

“This was probably the best game I’ve seen our guys play by far in terms of help defense and talking to each other,” Telman said. “It always makes me happy when I see them translate the things that they’ve learned at practice into the game. Even though we’ve beaten everybody that we’ve played, I keep telling these guys that there’s still more talent out there. It’s going to be a completely different style of play when they get to the varsity level, so it’s good to get ready for that now.”