CLEVELAND, Tenn. – Bradley Central’s top-ranked Bearettes went into Friday’s Region 3-3A quarterfinal basketball game against Cookeville with several thoughts in mind.
Sending a message was one of them.
Stamp it delivered.
The Bearettes, now at 30-0 with the tradition-rich program’s third-longest winning streak in its history, overwhelmed the Lady Cavaliers with a 32-0 run to open the game and destroyed the No. 4 team from District 6-3A by 69-35 at Jim Smiddy Arena.
“We’re hoping this game sent the message,” senior Halle Hughes said. “It goes to any team coming into Jim Smiddy Arena. It’s not going to be easy to win here.”
A little later, junior Rhyne Howard, who led all scorers with 25 points, narrowed the list of potential message receivers to one.
“It’s for Stone Memorial,” she said. “They’re going to be coming in here again and we beat them by two points during the season, but that was our worst game all year.”
Could the rematch be that close as well?
“Of course not,” said Howard, who attracted Purdue women’s coach Sharon Versyp and assistants Nadine Morgan and Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton to the game.
“Sometimes locker room talk spills over to the media,” Bearettes coach Jason Reuter said. “Sometimes I do think we’re silent assassins, but you don’t see a lot of jawing from my girls and that’s the way I want it. They are tough as nails though.”
Bradley beat Stone Memorial (20-10) on Howard’s 3-pointer late in the game on 48-46 for its ninth win.
On Friday, it was obvious Howard was not distracted by the Purdue coaches in the stands. Versyp also watched Howard at a Christmas tournament in Greenville, Tennessee.
What message is Versyp sending to Bradley’s 6-foot-2 point guard?
“They want me really bad,” she said. “They’re one of my top teams.”
The Bearettes, who are chasing the 1974-75 and 1975-76 Bearettes who went 36-0 with back-to-back state championships for the program’s best record, will play Stone Memorial on Monday at 6 p.m. in the first semifinal game at “The Smiddy.” Stone beat Walker Valley, 58-42.
East Hamilton’s girls, who lost to Bradley in the District 5-3A tournament title game on Monday, were eliminated by White County 54-51. Cumberland County, the 6-3A champion, pummeled McMinn County 77-58 in the other quarterfinal contest.
The Lady Jets will face White County at 7:30 p.m. in the second semifinal game on Monday.
The Bearettes, who chalked up their seventh straight district tournament title on Monday, will also host the girls’ region title game on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
The Region 3-3A boys quarterfinals are scheduled Saturday night with District 5-3A tournament champion Cleveland and runner-up East Hamilton hosting Warren County and Stone Memorial, respectively.
The 5-3A third-place team Walker Valley will travel to Cookeville and Bradley Central goes to District 6-3A champion White County. All games start at 7 p.m. local time.
If the other 6-3A girls’ teams coming to Cleveland on Monday don’t know, Cookeville coach Mindy Odom can tell them what a tough time her squad had trying to slow down the Bearettes, had a 24-0 lead after one quarter despite missing their first five shots and Howard scored nine while Hughes and Kimia Carter each scored five.
The Lady Cavs (17-14) went 46 seconds into the fourth quarter before scoring their 24th point.
“I was really impressed with Bradley’s offense,” Odom said, “but I was impressed with the defense more. That’s probably the best defense in the state. It’s tough to get shots off because they force so many turnovers. They’re after the ball all the time. That defense is for real and this game turned out like I thought it might. They’ve really got something going there.
“I talked to the girls before the game about Bradley can make a run on us. If they do, I told them not to drop their shoulders. We did that in the first half; we pouted a little bit. I also told them if they did that it (score) might be 60. I’ve got a great bunch of girls and wouldn’t trade them for anybody.”
Bradley Central went on an 8-0 run to start the second period to push the lead to 32-0.
At intermission, Cookeville was shooting 29 percent (5-of-17) from the field and Bean had three field goals.
Howard was superlative. In addition to 25 points on 9-of-16 shooting, that included five of the team's eight 3s, she had eight rebounds, seven assists and three steals. Her 17-first half points were five more than Cookeville had as a team.
Hughes finished with 17 points, 11 coming after halftime. Hughes added four rebounds, three assists and four of the Bearettes’ 14 steals. Junior reserve Kimia Carter added 14 points.
Bradley seemingly started pressuring the Lady Cavs the moment they walked into “The Smiddy” and they had no answer for the stunning defensive effort forced 15 first-half miscues.
When it was over Bean was the only effective offensive player for the Lady Cavs with 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting. The rest of Cookeville’s roster went 3-for-16.
“Jim Smiddy Arena is a tough place to play,” Reuter said. “We’ve had great players here and it’s an older gym with a lot of championship banners hanging up there. I remember as a college student at Lee University walking in here for the first time. I thought, ‘Man, what an impressive gym.’
“My eyes went right to those banners. We don’t hang region banners here. We don’t have region balls in the trophy case. We’re chasing that gold ball (for state titles) and it’s been a long time since the last one (1976). That’s our real goal. We’re going to play better team each round and want to stay hot at the right time. We know we’re in the mix, no question.
“I think we made a pretty decent team look worse than they are tonight. There are some big fish out there we still have to get past though.”
White County 54, East Hamilton 51: DeAndra Luna scored a game-high 19 points to lead the Warriorettes (23-9) to the hard-fought win against the Lady Hurricanes (16-14).
“It was a tough loss,” East Hamilton coach Hunter Gremore said, “but our girls played extremely well. We had a chance at the end to win and that’s what we tried to do – put ourselves in position to win the game.”
The Lady ‘Canes had a 27-21 halftime lead, but fell behind 37-36 after three quarters of play.
“They shoot the ball so well and we knew that,” Gremore said of White County’s players. “They hit nine 3s, but we were up by two points with 1:03 left and had the ball. On an inbounds play we turn it and they go down and tie the ballgame.”
East Hamilton again turned the ball over, White County hit a free throw and the same thing happened a few seconds later and had a two-point lead with 19 seconds remaining.
The Warriorettes led by three points in the final seconds and Lady ‘Canes freshman start Madison Hayes got a “good look” at a potential game-tying 3, but “it rattled around and out,” Gremore said.
“It was a great game and fun for the fans and coaches to watch,” the Lady Hurricanes’ first-year coach said. “We lost twice to them during the season and each game was 17 points. We have to learn from this. If we improved from tonight to next year like we did from early season to this point, we should be in good shape with most of our players coming back.”
Hayes finished with 13 points for East Hamilton. Eliziah Laboo added 10 points and Carli Zeh had nine points on three 3s.
LINESCORES
Cookeville 0 12 7 16 – 35
Bradley Central 24 16 20 9 – 69
Cookeville (35) – Sydney Bean 21, Gunter, Savage 4, Merek 2, Masters 3, Bouton, Widdifield, K. Dunaway 3, J. Dunaway, Smith, Surles, Shope 2.
Bradley Central (69) – Halle Hughes 17, Brown 3, Morgan 3, Rhyne Howard 25, McRee 4, Roberts, Koger, Kimia Carter 14, K. Hughes 3, Mayo, Reuter, Davis, Hullender, Lombard, Walker.
3-Point Goals – Cookeville 4 (Bean 4), Bradley Central 8 (Howard 5, Brown 1, Morgan 1, K. Hughes 1).
White County 10 11 16 17 – 54
East Hamilton 15 12 9 15 – 51
White County (54) – Stoglin 2, DeAndra Luna 19, Leftwich 9, Ka. Reeves 4, Anderson 5, Ke. Reeves 9, Bray 6, Curtis.
East Hamilton (51) – Lacy 5, Wood, Suttles 3, Scott 4, Madison Hayes 13, Gray 7, Zeh 9, Eliziah Laboo 10.
3-Point Goals – White County 9 (Luna 3, Ke. Reeves 3, Ka. Reeves 1, Anderson 1, Bray 1), East Hamilton 4 (Zeh 3, Gray 1).
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)