CARTERVILLE – The Carterville Lions beat the Anna-Jonesboro Wildcats 76-60 in a regular-season conference game Friday night.

The game began with a basket from Trammel to start the Wildcats off with a 2-0 lead.

Carterville’s Kade Lustenberger quickly responded with a bucket of his own to tie the game.

Peyton Bittle decided to score 9 points in a matter of 45 seconds by hitting three 3-point baskets for the Lions. The Wildcats acknowledged Bittle’s lead with a timeout to attempt to slow down the game.

At the end of the 1st quarter, the Lions were up 20-10.

After a very slow second quarter, Jonesboro’s Trammel hit a deep 3 to lessen the Lion’s lead to only 10 with 2:45 left in the 1st half.

Lions lead at halftime 39-25.

At the beginning of the second half, the Lions had a rough start with three turnovers and a foul. Thankfully, Lustenberger decided to break the slump with a 3-point basket.

The Wildcats responded with a basket but that wasn’t enough to stop the Lions. Carterville went on a 9-2 run with 5:22 left in the 3rd quarter.

Later on in the third quarter, Carterville’s Nolan Hartford made a flashy pass to Blake Burkey, who layed it off the glass. Jonesboro’s Trammel responded with a 3-point buzzer-beater to end the 3rd quarter, 55-39, with the Lions refusing to give up the lead.

Jonesboro’s Harvel started the 4th quarter with a quick 3-point basket to bring the score to 55-42.

After a back-and-forth beginning to the 4th quarter, the score read 65-52 after Carterville’s Peyton Bittle shot a 3-point basket.

Harvel responded to the Lion’s points with back-to-back baskets of his own.

Minutes later, Caden Hawkins came out of nowhere to steal the Wildcat ball to bring the Lion’s lead to 16 points with 1 minute left in the game. The Lion’s decision to hold the ball finished out the game with a score of 76-60.

We asked Bittle what was going through his mind after he proved to the Lion fans that he was on fire tonight.

“The ball was feeling pretty good coming out of my hand tonight and my teammates did a great job of putting me in a position to get good looks from the arc. That’s the one thing I love about this team. We don’t have guys hunting for points. If a guy is feeling hot we get the ball to him and tonight it just happened to be me,” said Bittle.

Juniors Bittle, Hawkins, Burkey, and Sophomore Aiden Hinton all scored double digits to bring the Lions to an exciting win.

The Lions play again on February 1st at home vs West Frankfort with JV starting at 6:15 and varsity to follow.

If you wish to keep up with the rest of Carterville’s sports be sure to check us out on Instagram and Twitter @CartervilleAth.