Cordele — Forced by a broken water pipe to make a last-minute switch in its Friday night playing site against Turner County, Crisp County High didn’t let the break in routine keep it from getting a split with its neighbor.

The victory posted in the local middle school gymnasium that years ago served as the home court for the local public school belonged to coach Barrett Wilkes’ girls who defeated the Lady Rebels, 39-32. Coach Terry Smith’s boys bowed 68-67 to the Rebels.

Neither the now 2-5 Cougars nor 6-1 Lady Cougars will play again until after Christmas when they take part in tournament action.

The girls play Valdosta on Dec. 27 and Cook County on Dec. 29 in a tournament at Tift County. The boys are in the 26-29 Converse Invitational at Decatur.

Lady Cougars 39, Lady Rebs 32

In a scrap that was hotly contested from beginning to end, Crisp let its quarter leads of 7-6, 20-12 and 26-21 almost slip away in the closing minutes when Turner rallied from a 7-point deficit to get a momentary tie.

“Until the last couple minutes or so when we freaked out once they went to a press to get back in it, I felt like we had been in control of things,” Wilkes said in reflecting upon what he labeled “a very physical rivalry.

“Fortunately, we ended up getting some buckets that put us over the top there at the end. Had we hit our free throws, though, (Crisp was only 8 of 27 from the line), it wouldn’t have been that close.

“Our defense wound up being the difference as I thought we played very well in that department. We went zone for the most part, but did use a little man-for-man in letting ‘Fruit’ (Nasheema Oliver) match up with their big girl (Antania Graddic).”

Those two wound up as the leading scorers for their teams with Oliver scoring 14 to match her rebound total and Graddic netting nine in defeat. Crisp also got 11 points from Nisha Waters and the same number of rebounds from Dee Dee Williams.

Score by Quarters

Turner County 6-6-9-11 — 32

Crisp County 7-13-6-13 — 39

Scoring

Turner County (32) — Miesha Stubbins 2, Antania Graddic 7, Venia Coley 4, Anna Cole 6, Maylasha Yancey 4, Taylor Daniel 3, Kalyah Glover 6.

Team totals: field goals 14; free throws 3 of 10 (30%); fouls 23; 3-pointers — Cole 1; fouled out — Stubbins, Coley.

Crisp County (39) — Nisha Waters 11, Dee Dee Williams 6, Deletria Colson, Kayla Green 4, Nasheema Oliver 14, Dajia Chambliss, Alexis Felton, Niqueria Jones, Miah Burks.

Team totals: field goals 15; free throws 8 of 27 (29.6%); fouls 9; 3-pointers — Colson 1; fouled out — none.

Rebels 68, Cougars 67

With many of them returning to the basketball roots they grew in the middle school gym, one would have thought Crisp would have had an advantage over its guests at least in the early going.

Not so, though, as it was the Rebel team that looked more at home while seizing leads of 12-9 after a quarter and 41-23 at intermission.

“We weren’t focused or ready at the start as for some reason or the other we played scared,” Smith said in his post-game evaluation. “As a result, the five-guard line-up (Turner) coach (Tyrone) Kellogg used at the beginning out-quicked the big guys we opened with in the post positions.

“After (assistant) coaches (Jeff) Wilson and (Lemetrice) Ray fired the guys up during the halftime break, we went to a small line-up ourselves and quickly got back in it.”

That they did, closing to within 57-46 entering the backstretch where their balanced scoring allowed them to go up by a point before missing two costly free throws that would have put them up by three.

After Turner came down the floor and scored to regain the lead, Crisp came up with a steal 4.1 seconds from the finish but narrowly missed hitting a game-winner at the buzzer.

Davion Harvey, Javoris Cooks and Primetime Hamilton led Crisp’s attack with 13, 12 and 10 points, respectively. Antonio Graddic and Shaquille Baldwin ran 1-2 for the winners with 20 and 15 points.

Score by Quarters

Turner County 12-29-14-13 — 68

Crisp County 9-14-23-21 — 67

Scoring

Turner County (68) — Antonio Graddic 20, Deandre Pierce 9, Shaquille Baldwin 15, Devontae Curtis 6, Xavier Thomas 5, Quan Hillmon 4, Nate Martin 3, Trey Stevens 2, Nyshawn Davis 2, Montavious Rockwell 2.

Team totals: field goals 28; free throws 8 of 20 (40%); fouls 20; 3-pointers — Curtis 2, Pierce 1, Martin 1; fouled out — none.

Crisp County (67) — Davion Harvey 13, Javoris Cooks 12, Primetime Hamilton 10, Taylor Walls 9, Kerrion Harris 5, Montel Richard 5, Shaquille West 5, Rashad Buckholts 3, Eddie Morgan 2, Montre’ Hartage 2, A.J. Mobley 1, C.J. McGriff, Clement Burnam, Condell Woodson.

Team totals: field goals 23; free throws 17 of 31 (54.8%); fouls 20; 3-pointers — Cooks 3, Harvey 1; fouled out — West.