Juiced: Cougars show spark and desire in win over Lowell

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The Greenfield-Central bench reacts after a 3-pointer late in the game against Lowell at the Lebanon Holiday Classic on Dec. 27, 2019. (Rob Baker/Daily Reporter) By: Rich Torres | Daily Reporter

LEBANON — The Greenfield-Central Cougars have a sign in their locker room that reads, “Bring the Juice.”

It’s modeled off a phrase used by University of Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck, referring to bringing energy and enthusiasm.

On Friday night, the Cougars brought their juice to Lebanon.

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In the first round of the Lebanon Holiday Tournament, the Cougars stifled Lowell Div.-I recruit Christopher Mantis and had a balanced scoring attack in a 56-50 victory.

It was the first time in three years at the event Greenfield-Central had won a first-round game. It was also the Cougars third straight win of the season, marking the club’s first three-game victory streak since the 2016-17 season. It evened their record to 3-3. Lowell dropped to 5-3.

“This whole group has bought in,” first-year Greenfield-Central coach Luke Meredith said. “We talk about juice. We talk about competing and the things we want to do on a daily basis.

“This is our standard. This is Greenfield-Central basketball. The slate is going to get tougher in January, but if we compete and play with juice and play that hard every single night, we’re going to be a tough out.”

The Cougars put the clamps on Mantis, a 6-foot-6 junior, who came into the game averaging 24.3 points per game and has already received an offer from Ball State University.

Mantis finished with 14 points, but 10 came in the fourth quarter — including a 3-pointer at the buzzer — after the Cougars had already built a double-figure lead.

“That was our main focus all week, stop him and our defense would get our offense going,” senior Jake Cochran said. “We came out and played with energy. We played with ‘juice’ as coach likes to say. We played with juice and competed.”

Both teams had their struggles shooting in the first half. Lowell went 0-of-7 from the field in the first quarter. Greenfield-Central had a 1-of-12 stretch in the second. At the half, Lowell had a slight edge, 19-18.

The second half was all Cougars. They continued to hold down the Red Devils, but their shooting picked up substantially.

Greenfield-Central scored the first 14 points of the second half. After six possessions each, G-C was 5-of-6 from the field, with buckets coming from four different players. Lowell was 0-of-4 with two turnovers.

At one point, four different players had 10 points. Brady Mundell ended up leading the way with 14. Frosh Dylan Moles had 12, all in the second half. Cochran scored 11 and Caleb Mundell had 10.

A different Cougar led in scoring each quarter, too. Cochran led the Cougars in the first with four points. Caleb Mundell had six in the second. Moles led G-C with eight in the third and Brady Mundell had eight points in the fourth.

“Our game plan was to come out and shut (Mantis) down,” Caleb Mundell said. “The first half, I think we did that pretty well. Our defense got our offense going and that was a big key.

“It was big having that balanced attack (on offense). We’ve got a lot of guys that can shoot. That’s huge. We can spread teams out and it’s really helpful.”

Along with winning a third straight, it was the Cougars first win over a Class 4A school. At 3-3, they are already just one win shy of equaling last season’s win total.

“We’re just playing with confidence. That’s the biggest thing,” Meredith said. “It’s one of those things, as a team, you wins some games (over Speedway and Yorktown at home) and now our first win on the road, or neutral site. For us, it’s all starting to come together.

“We’re getting better defensively and we’re getting better in getting the shots we want offensively.”

Greenfield-Central will play host Lebanon at 11:30 a.m. today in a tournament semifinal game. The host Tigers beat Herron, 58-31 on Friday.