Semifinal Saturday.
It’s one of the great days in high school basketball.
District 5-3A had its top eight title contenders – four boys and four girls teams – on display on at Soddy-Daisy High School. Each was going for a berth in championship games scheduled Monday and Tuesday. Each was safe in the fact they already have spots in next week’s Region 3-3A tournament.
So, how did it turn out?
For one thing, all the highest seeded teams won.
In order of the games played:
*** The top-seeded and undefeated Bradley Central Bearettes brushed No. 4 McMinn County aside with a 68-29 rout and moved to within one win of their seventh straight tournament championship.
The Bearettes (28-0) play the East Hamilton on Monday night at 7:30 p.m. for the 2017 title.
Bradley has now won 204 of the 240 all-time games against the Lady Cherokees, including the last 26 in a row.
“My kids are pretty much games,” said Bradley Central coach Jason Reuter, who is 20-0 versus the Lady Cherokees. “I knew we were ready. It may have been the most relaxed I’ve been before a game in my entire coaching career. When the bright lights are on and the cheese is on the cracker, this team is not going to lay down.”
*** Cleveland’s No. 1 Blue Raiders got into a back alley fight with rival Walker Valley, but coach Jason McCowan’s squad came through like the regular-season champion they are, holding on for a 62-52 victory over the tenacious defending champion Mustangs.
The game attracted an almost packed-house crowd to the Trojans’ gymnasium, something that’s commonplace for the Raiders, Mustangs and Bradley teams when they get together in Bradley County showdowns.
The Blue Raiders (23-3) saw a 56-45 lead with 1:48 left narrow to 57-52 in a 44-second span and then managed to hit 5-of-10 free throws to pull out the win.
Cleveland will play in their third tournament title game in four years when they’ll take on East Hamilton on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
“We could not get in a flow offensively,” McCowan said. “We went to a ball-screen motion and got a drive and a 3 out of it and that us to moving. We were lucky to survive.”
*** East Hamilton’s Lady Hurricanes, the No. 2 seed, turned a seven-point lead into a 33-15 margin with an 8-0 run, but almost blew an 11-point lead in the game’s final 1 minute and 50 seconds before winning 46-44 over Walker Valley.
Leading by two points with four seconds remaining, Kaiyanna Suttles was fouled and went to the charity stripe for a one-and-one. She missed the first attempt, but hustled to wrest the ball from two Lady Mustangs players and prevented them from getting a chance to tie or win the game.
“I saw the ball was going left,” said Suttles, who probably wouldn’t have been on the floor if not for absence of Maleiah Moon (torn ACL) and Unity Woods (back spasms). “I had to make up for missing the free throw. I knew coach (Hunter Gremore) would yell at me if I didn’t. I got to the ball before they did and just held on.”
Suttles scored one point.
“I wanted to kill her when she missed the shot, but wanted to kiss her when got the loose ball,” said Gremore, the district’s girls’ coach of the year.
*** Bringing curtain down on Day 4, the second-seeded East Hamilton Hurricanes, who came into the tourney on a three-game slide, answered everything Bradley Central threw at them and defeated the Bears 70-63 behind Justin Dozier’s superlative 20-point effort.
“It was a tough game and we knew it would be,” Dozier said.
The Hurricanes (21-9) will make their first championship game appearance on Tuesday.
“Can you believe we made it this quick,” said Rodney English, who is in his third year coaching the ‘Canes. “Doing it with this group of kids is exciting. I’m so proud of them.”
The game was like a prizefight, each team throwing punches and the other springing back to counter-punch.
East Hamilton worked into a 29-20 halftime lead and stretched it to 42-29 after back-to- back 3s by Noah Fager and Cameron Montgomery. Bradley (18-9) scored eight straight, half of them by Lameric Tucker. The ‘Canes ran off the next 10 points that included a four-point play from Montgomery.
The Bears, who split road victories with the ‘Canes during the season, reeled off 10 straight points – John Brown had four and Tucker hit another 3-pointer – and East Hamilton’s lead was 52-51 midway through the fourth quarter. Tucker finished with a game-high 21 points.
Dozier knocked down his third 3 and Montgomery hit a jumper from the left wing. Cole Copeland made two free throws – he scored 19 points – and DaVae Hughley’s two freebies pushed East Hamilton’s lead to 59-53.
“Justin was flat-out amazing,” English said. “On both ends of the court.”
Two Brown free throws sliced East Hamilton’s lead to 60-57. Montgomery and Hughley each made two charity tosses and after a Tucker free throw, Vandrele Wilson made two, Hughley one and Dozier one and the ‘Canes were up 68-58 with 18.2 seconds left.
The Dozier-Copeland matchup got heated at times. At one point, Dozier was hit with a technical foul after making a 3. Using lip-reading, Dozier said, “Take that,” toward Copeland.
“I was trying to get in his head,” the Hurricanes junior said. “He said something negative one time, but that was about it. I think I definitely got to him.”
As a freshman, Dozier and the ‘Canes lost an early round game to Ooltewah. The next year they suffered the same fate, this time against McMinn County.
In their third try, the ‘Canes were charmed.
“It’s really exciting,” Dozier said. “I’m proud.”
Fager and Montgomery each scored 14 points and Hughley added 10. Fager made three 3-pointers.
Copeland had 19 points and Brown added 13 for the Bears.
Bradley had won seven straight coming into the game.
Bradley Central girls 68, McMinn County 29: The Bearettes had the game completely under control after a 23-6 first quarter. They extended the lead to 47-14 at the half, thanks in part to holding the Lady Cherokees to 19 percent shooting.
“We’re always pumped for big games,” said senior Kailey McRee, who had eight rebounds and eight points, seven-and-seven in the first eight minutes. “This one was all over after the first quarter.”
Said Reuter about McRee, “Everybody knows Rhyne Howard and Halle Hughes, but not many know about Kailey McRee. She has a specialized role with us as a role player. She might have zero points or eight to 10 points, but we won’t win without her. Per-minute, she’s probably our leading rebounder. She’s tough as nails.”
Junior Rhyne Howard led the Bearettes with a game-high 23 points and added seven rebounds and three steals in another solid performance. Howard now has 1,649 career points and ranks 15th on the school’s all-time list.
Howard made four of Bradley’s nine 3s.
The laid-back Howard shows little emotion on the court, but admitted to being psyched for the semifinal showdown against a team the Bearettes beat twice during the season by a combined 80 points.
“We were really confident,” Howard said. “We played them twice, so we practiced what they run and guarded it. That carried over into the game.”
Halle Hughes overcame a slow start and wound up with 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting, three rebounds and three assists. She pushed her career points total to 1,750, good for 13th in program history.
“This was a big game because we’re going for our seventh straight district tournament championship in a row,” Hughes said. “We hadn’t played in a while, but we came out ready to play.”
The Bearettes forced 17 turnovers and outscored the Lady Cherokees 19-0 on miscues and outrebounded their foes 43-24..
The opening quarter was impressive, but the first five field goals Bradley made starting the third period were 3-pointers. The first one by Emma Kate Brown triggered the TSSAA “running clock.”
After Brown’s 3, Howard drained two in a row, Hughes knocked down one and Sydney Morgan’s bomb gave Bradley Central a 63-23.
Kaitlyn Hennessee paced the Lady Cherokees with 13 points on 4-of-12 shooting. She hit two of her team’s four 3-pointers. McMinn made just 9-of-35 shots (25.7 percent) after shooting 19 percent in the first half.
McMinn County coach Tim McPhail is now 0-25 against Bradley Central.
Cleveland boys 62, Walker Valley 52: The Blue Raiders, who won nine of their last 10 games to close the season, were worried about a 15-day layoff. While they appeared rusty offensively for three quarters, it worked out with a 20-point fourth period.
“Hey, we had 15 days off, KK (Curry) had an off night, we shot poorly at the free-throw line and still won by 10 points,” said McCowan, the district’s coach of the year.
Cleveland led by 42-37 after three quarters of hard-fought basketball. The Raiders scored 10 of the first 13 points and built a 52-40 advantage midway through the final period.
When Curry dropped in a layup at the 1:48 mark, Cleveland was on top 56-45.
Kolten Gibson, who had 14 points, hit a 3, Dakota Murphy made one free throw and Gibson came back with a deep 3 to pull the Mustangs to within 57-52 with 1:04 left.
“Kolten Gibson can change the landscape in a hurry,” McCowan said.
Unfortunately, Walker Valley (16-11) failed to score again.
Cleveland did.
Romeo Wykle dropped in a free throw, Mullek Bradford hit two and Dionte Ware added one each on two trips to the stripe in the final 20 seconds for the 10-point decision.
“We got frustrated and I think nervous a little bit,” said Davis, who had 14 points, including four 3-pointers. “But we got the ‘W’. We were confident and focused in the last quarter and beat them.”
Cleveland got a big case of the nerves when fouls started mounting. Davis eventually fouled out and Curry and Ware had four when the game ended.
“I was really frustrated with the fouls,” Curry said. “Coach (McCowan) had to calm me down. He said, ‘Keep your head and we’ll get through this.”
Ware finished with 10 points for the Blue Raiders.
Bruce Nunnelly scored 16 points to pace the Mustangs. Gibson added 14 points and Melton had 10.
“We knew they went to the ball-screen, but we didn’t adjust quickly enough,” Mustangs coach Bob Williams said. “Once we adjusted they didn’t get much out of it.
“I told the guys after the game they have to respond to this loss. We have to bounce back and be ready to play Tuesday and we’ll have to go on the road for the region. We still have possibilities though.”
East Hamilton girls 46, Walker Valley 44: The Lady Hurricanes were lucky to have Suttles around. With most of an 11-point lead disappearing in the final 1:50, Suttles drew the foul in the game’s most intense moment.
Suttles missed the 2015-16 season with a torn ACL, but was ready for this campaign. After a couple games, Suttles injured her ankle and missed more time. She slowly worked back into the lineup in a limited role.
East Hamilton was without Maleiah Moon (torn ACL) and Unity Wood (back spasms) and had those players been available Suttles would not have been in the game at the end.
After her game-winning heroics, Suttles was more than thrilled.
“It made me feel great that I helped my team win,” said Suttles, who scored one point.
Suttles missed the 2015-16 season with a torn ACL suffered during AAU ball and came back in the fall ready to play. After a few games, she sustained a bad ankle injury and missed more playing time.
“We missed her tremendously,” Gremore said. “We had to make plays like she did to win this game. We made some dumb mistakes and Walker Valley started attacking the basket and it got real dicey at the end. Another minute and we probably don’t win. Lucky for us time ran out.”
Now, the Lady Hurricanes have another shot at the potent Bearettes, who won by two regular-season games by a combined 70 points.
East Hamilton built a 45-34 lead on single free throws by Dezah Lacy and Carl Zeh with 1:50 left. Abby Davis scored five straight points to pull the Lady Mustangs (17-11) within three points.
Lacy’s free throw stopped her team’s drought, but Emily Anderson layup cut East Hamilton’s lead to 46-44, setting up the final seconds.
LINESCORES
Semifinals
Girls
McMinn County 6 8 14 1 – 29
Bradley Central 23 24 17 4 – 68
McMinn County (29) – Liner 1, Burns 3, Kaitlyn Hennessee 13, Green 4, Gleaton, Harper, Walker 3, Manney 2, Schiestel 2, Sitzer, Baxter 1.
Bradley Central (68) – Halle Hughes 14, Brown 7, Morgan 6, Rhyne Howard 23, McRee 8, Roberts, Carter 9, K. Hughes, Mayo, Reuter, Hullender, Lombard 1, Walker.
3-Point Goals – McMinn County 4 (Hennessee 2, Burns 1, Walker 1), Bradley Central 9 (Howard 4, Morgan 2, H.Hughes 2, Brown 1).
Boys
Walker Valley 9 11 17 15 – 52
Cleveland 11 10 21 20 – 62
Walker Valley (52) – Munck 2, Westfield 2, Kolten Gibson 14, Cooper Melton 10, Duke, Johnson, Eslinger 4, Murphy 4, Bryce Nunnelly 16.
Cleveland (62) – Wykle 4, Berry 8, Bradford 7, KK Curry 14, Wood, Dionte Ware 10, Patterson, Deontae Davis 14, K. Ware 5.
3-Point Goals – Walker Valley 4 (K. Gibson 3, Murphy 1), Cleveland 6 (Davis 4, K. Ware 1, Wykle 1).
Girls
Walker Valley 5 10 7 22 – 44
East Hamilton 11 10 15 10 – 46
Walker Valley (44) -- Nipper, Abby Davis 13, Kaley Walker 14, Anderson 6, Lay 5, Clark 3, Jones 2.
East Hamilton (46) – Dezah Lacy 10, Suttles 1, Madison Hayes 10, Gray 2, Zeh 9, Pettit, Elizabeth Laboo 15
3-Point Goals – Walker Valley 4 (Walker 3, Clark 1), East Hamilton 2 (Zeh 1, Hayes 1).
Boys
Bradley Central 11 9 19 24 – 63
East Hamilton 14 15 19 22 – 70
Bradley Central (63) – Cartwright 7, John Brown 13, Cole Copeland 19, Duggan, Lameric Tucker 21, Clark 2, Beavers 2.
East Hamilton (70) – Wilson 4, Williams 8, Cameron Montgomery 14, DaVae Hughley 10, Noah Fager 14, Justin Dozier 20, Hammett, Wingard.
3-Point Goals – Bradley Central 5 (Tucker 3, Copeland 1, Brown 1), East Hamilton 9 (Fager 4, Dozier 3, Montgomery 2).
Monday’s Schedule
Girls Consolation
McMinn County vs. Walker Valley, 6 p.m.
Girls Championship
East Hamilton vs. Bradley Central, 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday’s Schedule
Boys Consolation
Walker Valley vs. Bradley Central, 6 p.m.
Boys Championship
East Hamilton vs. Cleveland, 7:30 p.m.
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)