The Greenwood boys’ basketball team is making a habit of playing games that go down to the wire, holding off a late charge from Russell County to prevail 80-76 Tuesday at Greenwood High School.

Greenwood nearly let a huge fourth-quarter lead slip away before closing it out in the final seconds to improve to 2-1 on the season. All three games have been decided by four points or less.

“We are getting better,” Greenwood coach Bob Pels said. “We are figuring out our combinations that work and we are playing a lot of different guys. Right now we have a lot of confidence in 10 or 12 different guys. We had 12 different guys in the game tonight, so that was good.”

Senior guard Luke Littrell said Tuesday was an important win for the Gators, who bounced back from a 66-65 loss at Glasgow on Friday.

“This was huge,” Littrell said. “You come home, first home game against a pretty decent team out there. To win that game is pretty big for us.”

The Gators appeared headed to an easy win before Russell County (1-3) used a late rally to make it interesting.

Trailing 16-13 early in the second quarter, the Gators surged ahead for good with Littrell scoring six straight to make the score 19-16.

The lead grew to 32-27 by halftime with a Jack Roberts jumper late in the third quarter extending the advantage to 54-43.

Greenwood took its largest lead of the night when Roberts’ jumper made the score 70-52 with 4:01 left before the Lakers tried to mount a comeback.

A 10-1 run trimmed the deficit to eight with 2:08 left. Russell County continued to shave the deficit, getting as close as four in the final seconds, but the Lakers were unable to get it closer than a two-possession game with Greenwood hitting four free throws in the final 11 seconds to seal it.

Despite the late success, Greenwood finished 23-for-36 from the free-throw line – nine misses coming in the fourth quarter.

“(It was) that inexperience factor,” Pels said. “We missed too many free throws down the stretch. We should have put it away, but there has only been a couple of those guys that have been in games like this their whole lives.

“We didn’t quit in there. Basically, if we just made our free throws it wouldn’t have been that close at all.”

Roberts led the way for Greenwood with 28 points, while Littrell finished with 16 points.

“They need to do that,” Pels said. “They haven’t been playing as well as we would like them to the last couple of games. We had a little talk about shot selection and taking good shots. I think we mostly took good shots tonight.”

Ben Carroll added 11 points and Noah Nash chipped in 10 points for the Gators.

Brayton Scales led Russell County with 20 points.

Greenwood will play at Clinton County at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, while Russell County hosts Glasgow at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

RCHS 10 17 19 30 – 76

GHS 11 21 24 24 – 80

RC – Scales 20, Richardson 15, Hadley 14, Miller 8, Walter 7, Coffey 4, Clark 3, Hamm 3, Bunch 2.

GHS – Roberts 28, Littrell 16, Carroll 11, Nash 10, Williams 8, N. Stansbury 4, Floyd 2, I. Stansbury 1.

Russell County 59, Greenwood 33, girls

LaShaya Carmen had 19 points and 14 rebounds as the defending Region 4 champs cruised to victory over the Lady Gators.

Russell County (3-0) shot 51 percent from the field and outrebounded Greenwood 39-24.

Jaylen Elmore added 13 points and eight rebounds, while Addison Loy finished with 11 points.

“We worked a lot this week on LaShaya Carmen,” Russell County coach Craig Pippen said. “She didn’t play physical and intense the first two games, so I kind of brought her in the office and challenged her. She came and played a whole different game for us tonight. We have to have that if we have any hopes of competing for a region championship.”

Greenwood (1-2) struggled on offense for the second straight game, shooting 22.2 percent from the field. After scoring 48 in an opening night win, the Lady Gators have scored 63 points combined in the last two losses.

Jacqueline Jackson led Greenwood with 20 points, while Riley Hartis added 11 points.

“We are looking at some options right now as far as girls stepping in to play some roles and score, but at the same time other girls have to step up and make some shots,” Greenwood coach Zach Simpson said. “We are confident that is going to happen. It’s the third game of the season. Some of the girls are still trying to build some confidence to look to try to score somehow.

“There was a fight tonight and that is something we told the girls after the game tonight, that fight is going to carry us the rest of the season. That Russell County team is really good.”

Greenwood will host Butler County at 6 p.m. Thursday. Russell County hosts Glasgow at 6 p.m. Friday.

RCHS 10 16 15 18 – 59

GHS 4 10 13 6 – 33

RC – Carmen 19, Elmore 13, Loy 11, Ackerman 5, Southerland 5, Bault 4, Wade 2.

GHS – Jackson 20, Hartis 11, Gordon 2.{&end}