No. 7 Seed Soddy-Daisy Shocks Walker Valley, 54-42

Apparently, Soddy-Daisy enjoys the role of underdog.

And the Trojans don’t mind pulling ironman duty on the court either.

The seventh-seeded Trojans jumped out to a 12-0 lead and proceeded to blow out No. 3 seed and two-time defending champion Walker Valley, 54-42, Thursday night in the District 5-AAA basketball tournament at Ooltewah High School.

The shock waves were still bouncing off the walls of Edward M.

Foster Gymnasium when fans, players and coaches began clearing the building.

“That’s basketball,” said Mustangs coach Bob Williams, who directed his teams to tournament titles in 2013 and 2014. “Give Soddy-Daisy credit. They came out in that zone defense and we weren’t ready for it, weren’t aggressive enough and I’ll take the blame for that.”

In an earlier girls' game, third-seeded Cleveland Lady Blue Raiders, who had four players and their coach fighting different forms of illness, shook off the medical blahs and fought their way to a 36-25 win over No. 7 East Hamilton.

The win gives Cleveland a spot opposite No. 2 Walker Valley in the semifinals at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Despite playing on Wednesday’s opening night and knocking off McMinn County, the Trojans came out with energy, built the early 12-0 lead, defensively smothered the Mustangs, got a majority of the 50-50 balls and rebounded like old-time Trojans of Troy to overwhelm their opponents.

“This feels great,” said Trojans senior guard Andy Wright, who has signed to play baseball at Middle Tennessee State University. “We didn’t win (in the tournament) my freshman, sophomore or junior years and now we’re in the semifinals. That’s huge for us.”

Wright finished with a game-high 19 points on 4-of-8 shooting that included 2-of-3 from 3-point distance. He was a perfect 9-for-9 at the free-throw line.

Soddy-Daisy (11-16), which had lost six straight to the Mustangs (12-14), including an 89-63 thrashing in the first round of last year’s tournament, saved its best basketball of the year for Thursday’s quarterfinal showdown.

The Trojans needed just five players to pull off the stunning victory as Daniels went exclusively with his starters the entire 32 minutes. All of them scored.

Daniels was without his starting point guard, Bradley Whymer, who has a hip flexor.

“Jacob Flippo, a sophomore, came into a pressure situation and shined,” Daniels said. “We were glad to see that.”

Jacob Floyd added 17 points and Marshae Jeffries, the team’s only other senior, scored seven points and grabbed 11 of the team’s 31 rebounds, six on the defensive end.

The Trojans made 14-of-38 field goals (36.8 percent), went 5-of-10 behind the arc and dropped in 21-of-33 free throws.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the leadership we’ve gotten from Andy and Marshae. They’re our senior captains and they’ve really emotionally brought these other guys together and things seem to be clicking right now. Hopefully, that will continue.”

With the win, Soddy-Daisy storms into Saturday’s semifinals against No. 2 seed Cleveland at 7:30 p.m. The Trojans go into that game safe in knowing they also have secured a berth in the Region 3-AAA tournament next week.

As usual, District 5-AAA will be paired against District 6-AAA for the regional tourney.

“I think the guys have a never-say-die attitude right now because they believe in each other,” Daniels said. “We’ve tried to encourage them by telling them they have what it takes and now is the time it matters, so let’s write our story.”

The first shockwave of the night came early when Soddy-Daisy went out to a 12-0 lead and held the Mustangs to one first-quarter point. Flippo and Floyd each scored five points in the opening period.

Wright got into the act with five points in the second quarter, helping the Trojans build a 23-5 halftime advantage.

The Mustangs were aghast with the revolting development.

“I don’t know if it ever sank in with us,” Williams said. “We thought we would get things going, but we never got over the hump. With the one-and-done (win or go home), you can’t do that. You have to come out ready to go.

“I told the guys to hang in there, basketball is a crazy thing. It could turn around if we got more aggressive.”

However,  Soddy-Daisy extended its double-digit lead to 33-14 going into the fourth quarter.

Flippo came up with a steal and drove the floor for a layup and the Trojans had their biggest lead of the game at 35-14.

That’s when the Mustangs found new life.  Josh Jones and Kolten Gibson made back-to-back 3s, Bryce Nunnelly hit two free throws, followed with a left-wing 3 and Walker Valley cut its deficit to 35-25 with 4:04 left.

Soddy-Daisy scored six of the next eight points for a 42-27 advantage.

Gibson started a 7-0 Mustangs run with a 3 from the right corner, Cooper Melton made four straight free throws and over a span of just 13 seconds Walker Valley trimmed the Trojans’ lead to 41-34 with 2:34 on the clock.

“We knew Walker Valley could get hot,” Wright said, “and they did. We huddled up and said knew they could make a run, but how we responded would make the difference.”

In the final 2:30, Soddy-Daisy made 11-of-12 free throws – the only field goal in that span was Tre Carter’s putback of Floyd’s missed layup – to seal the deal.

“I hate it for our guys to go out like that,” Williams said. “We’ve overcome a lot of stuff this year with injuries and this is another life lesson we have to learn from. Life’s not always fair.”

Cleveland girls 36, East Hamilton 25: The Lady Raiders’ infirmary list, including coach Mindy Kiser, went like this: Two players had the flu, two came down with a stomach virus and Kiser has “been on the couch all week” with a sinus infection.

A healthy Bre Ware led the Lady Raiders (15-11) with 10 points. The four ailing players – Jenna Scoggins, perhaps a good bet for the regular season most valuable player honor, Shawnia Anderson, Sarah Crump and Hallea McClendon – combined for 17 points while just trying to get through the night.

“I don’t feel good at all,” Scoggins said. “I’m ready to go home and lay down. I woke up this morning with the stomach bug and throwing up. Coach told me she would play me a few minutes at a time, but there were times out there I just felt plain sick. We all tried to push through.”

If the virus wasn’t enough, East Hamilton pressure Scoggins with physical defense any time she touched the ball. Her time spent on the floor probably matched up the time she was upright.

Cleveland, beating East Hamilton (8-23) for the fifth straight time, could not pull away until late in the third quarter. Up by 20-19, the Lady Raiders scored nine of the next 11 points – five by Ware – and had a 29-21 lead going into the final eight minutes of play.

“Our plans is always to press a lot, but I felt it was best not to do that tonight because of the girls that were sick,” Kiser said. “We weren’t our typical aggressive selves out there, but we’re still playing.”

It looked like both teams were out of gas for most of the final period.

East Hamilton got field goals by Kyndall Caudle, who led her team with 10 points, and Malieah Moon to trim Cleveland’s lead to 29-25 with 5:15 left. The Lady Hurricanes failed to score again and Cleveland scored the game’s final seven points.

“Our girls gave everything they had,” Lady Hurricanes coach Derek Morris said. “We had Cleveland on the ropes for a while. In the third quarter, they took away our strengths by stopping our drives and we couldn’t hit the jumpers. And we never recovered. Down the stretch they made a few more plays than we did.”

East Hamilton, which will move back to Class AA competition next season, went 12-46 in its two years in District 5-AAA. In their previous four years, the Lady Hurricanes were 85-43 in District 6-AA with three successive tournament championships and three straight appearances in the sectional.

Cleveland advanced to the semifinals where it will play No. 2 seed Walker Valley on Saturday at 6 p.m.

The Lady Mustangs swept the regular-season series, winning by 43-38 and 53-44 scores in January.

Summaries

Girls Game

(7) East Hamilton                       8 7 6 4 – 25

(3) Cleveland                                 8 7 14 6 – 36

East Hamilton (25) – Moon 5, Kyndall Caudle 10, Scott, Wood 5, Gray, C. Zeh 2, Black 3, M. Zeh, Maston.

Cleveland (36) – Bre Ware 10, Scoggins 8, Crump 4, Anderson 2, Walkup, Morman 4, Phillips, Person 5, McClendon 3.

3-Point Goals – East Hamilton 2 (Moon 1, Caudle 1), Cleveland 1 (Scoggins).

Boys Game

(7) Soddy-Daisy                           12 11 10 21 – 54

(3) Walker Valley                       1 4 9 28 – 42

Soddy-Daisy (54) – Carter 4, Flippo 7, Andy Wright 19, Jacob Floyd 17, Jeffries 7.

Walker Valley (42) – Conway 2, Gibson 3, Melton 7, Herd 2, Eslinger 2, Williams, Nunnelly 9, Josh Jones 11, Bunton 6.

3-Point Goals – Soddy-Daisy 5 (Wright 2, Floyd 2, Flippo 1), Walker Valley 4 (Jones 2, Nunnelly 1, Gibson 1).

Friday’s Schedule

(4) Soddy-Daisy girls vs. (5) Ooltewah, 6 p.m.

(4) Ooltewah boys vs. (5) East Hamilton, 7:30 p.m.

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)