Jackson Garner (pictured against Heritage High School) broke Clinton High School’s single-game scor- ing record against Gatlinburg-Pittman with 54 points, beating the previous record of 50 set by Jermaine Shepperd in 1998 against Halls. Garner was also pre- sented with his 1,000th-point ball that same night. - Tony Cox
Jackson Garner scored a team-record 54 points Saturday to lead the Clinton Dragons to a 91-76 home basketball victory over Gatlinburg-Pittman Saturday.
Garner broke the 50-point record set in 1998 by Jermaine Shepherd. Thirty of Garner’s 54 points came via three pointers. He scored three treys within less than a minute late in the third period to help the Dragons break out of a tight game.
Clinton Coach Chris Lockard said he had a premonition Garner would set a record.
“I just had that feeling,” said Lockard, who made a special pregame presentation to Garner for scoring his 1,000th point in his Dragon career in a tournament game last season.
“Jackson has been shooting well and I even told him before the game I thought he had a chance to set the record,” Lockard said.
Playing their home opener, the Dragons had the upper hand against the Highlanders during the first period, leading 20-12 after eight minutes.
However, G-P scored 12 unanswered points early in the second period to move the game into a nip-and-tuck battle where the lead changed hands several times before the game was tied at halftime 32-32.
There are few sports as intimate as wrestling, and with a pandemic still raging across the globe requiring everyone to stand six feet apart, wear masks, and wash their hands, it’s understandable that parents and schools have reservations about wrestling.
Even with those reservations, Anderson County is forging ahead with the wrestling season, hoping for the best.
“I think it’s going to look a lot different this year than in years past,” said AC Coach Matt Sloan.
“They’ve already cut the number of teams at a tournament we usually go to and moved the venue from Knoxville Catholic to Heritage High School because Catholic didn’t have enough space in their gym to do all the social distancing and stuff that needs to be done,” Sloan said. “They’ve requested that we make our matches and meets as small as we can, too. We used to have four or five teams at home matches, and they’re really discouraging that this year, so it’s going to look different for sure.
There are changes this week to area high school basketball schedules as Anderson County’s High School boys team is quarantined for two weeks due to COVID-19 exposure.
While Anderson County was supposed to play Central, Clinton, and Halls in the coming days, the Central and Clinton games will still take place on their scheduled days (Dec. 1 for Central and Dec. 4 for Clinton), but will be only girls varsity games. The Halls game, which was originally scheduled for Dec. 8, will be moved to Dec. 9 to give the Mavs a day to practice after coming back.
Derek Wallace, head coach of the boys, said they’re trying to reschedule things and get everything they can worked out.
“We’re playing the Clinton boys tentatively on Sunday, Dec. 13,” he said. “The JV Boys will be at 1:30 and the varsity boys at 3. I still have to confirm that with the officials. We’re allowed back on Dec. 8, so we moved the Halls game back a day so we could at least have one day to practice. We practice on the eighth and then we play pretty much every other day until Christmas. It’s going to be a busy month.”
Lady Dragon Naiyah Sanders drives against Heritage early in the season. - Tony Cox
When the Clinton High School girls basketball team tangled with Jefferson County Saturday to close out the Farragut Thanksgiving Tournament, the two teams slugged through an even first quarter.
But things didn’t stay knotted for long as the Lady Patriots turned up the defensive pressure and pulled away en route to a 78-55 victory at the Lynn E. Sexton Gymnasium.
The Lady Dragons and Lady Patriots were tied 22-22 after the opening frame as Clinton answered every punch that Jefferson County threw.
The Lady Dragons entered the tournament short-handed as one player was in quarantine and another was ill, according to coach Alicia Phillips.
“We were pretty gassed,” Phillips said. “We didn’t have a full (roster). We have one (player) in quarantine and we have another that has been sick for a while.
