CLEVELAND, Tenn. – After losing an emotional game Saturday night against fierce rival Bradley Central, the Cleveland Blue Raiders played like they were still in a funk Tuesday against visiting East Hamilton.
The Blue Raiders (13-7, 8-1) relied on a tenacious defense to offset a sporadic offense and defeated the Hurricanes, 48-37, to stay in the hunt for a District 5-AAA regular-season championship.
League-leading Bradley (15-7, 9-1) remained a half-game up on the Blue Raiders with a 78-55 win over Ooltewah.
“From a coaching standpoint it was nice because we played so well defensively,” Cleveland coach Jason McCowan said.
“From a fan’s standpoint, it was pretty ugly. We missed a lot of shots, made a lot of turnovers. After three quarters we had as many turnovers (22) as they had points.”
Both teams played like a lid was on the rim. Nothing much was going in. The Blue Raiders led 10-6 after one quarter, 25-12 at the half.
Cleveland looked like it had left all emotions on the court at Bradley Central after a 65-62 loss – the Blue Raiders’ first league setback – before 2,500 fans just three days earlier.
“You go from very emotional and playing in front of a lot of people to playing in front of not a lot of people,” McCowan said. “I’m sure there’s some sort of letdown factor because you can’t get back up to the emotions like we did on Saturday.”
If the Blue Raiders and Bears win out, they will finish with identical 11-1 district records. The tie will be broken by a coin flip for the district tournament, which will be held at Ooltewah High School. The top two seeds – and that’s almost certainly going to be Bradley and Cleveland – will earn a spot in the district semifinals. That also gives those two teams automatic berths in the Region 3 tournament.
“A one or two (seed) gives us a legitimate one-game scenario to get to the district final,” McCowan said. “At the beginning of the year your goal is to get into the region tournament. We’ve still got three district games left, but we know we’re in a pretty nice situation.”
Cleveland’s remaining district schedule includes home games against Walker Valley, which is back to full strength with Kenny Bunton’s return Tuesday night against Soddy-Daisy, and McMinn County and a road game at Ooltewah to close out the regular season.
Bradley plays at Soddy-Daisy, takes a two-game break for non-district outings against Baylor and Farragut and winds up the season at East Hamilton.
Speaking of the Hurricanes, coach Rodney English thought his team’s poor shooting early set the tempo for the remainder of Tuesday’s game.
“Our start hurt us,” he said. “We got eight or nine layup attempts and we missed them. Then we started throwing the ball away. I thought the kids did a terrible job of what I asked them to do – swing it, take steps, get it to the middle and let’s go make some layups.”
The Hurricanes made a few more of their high percentage shots in the second half, but just didn’t get enough of them to overtake the Blue Raiders.
Cleveland’s Jonathan Vecchio was a prickly thorn in East Hamilton’s side, scoring seven of his 12 points in the first period and then drained his second 3 and a layup in the first 90 seconds of the second quarter as the Blue Raiders stretched their lead to 15-8.
“I felt good,” Vecchio said. “I was doing whatever I could to help the team. Scoring quick like that is just the way the game evolved.”
McCowan said Vecchio settled the rest of the team down.
“Good things were happening when we got to the rim,” the coach said. “(Jonathan) is long and lanky and looks wild when he drives to the (bucket), but that calmed us down. Once we got a 10-point lead we kept it there about all night.”
English felt Vecchio was a difference early on and credited the Blue Raiders’ senior.
“I guarantee you that’s the best game he’s played because he made jumpers – he’s got a pretty jump shot – that were wide open shots,” English said. “We could not contain No. 10 (Isaiah Beaty). He was doing things in the middle, we had to play help and he was kicking it out to (Vecchio).”
A free throw by James McRee, his only point in the game, gave Cleveland a 33-22 advantage after three quarters of play.
The Hurricanes’ Justin Dozier scored five straight points to whittle Cleveland’s lead to 33-27 with 7:00 on the clock.
Jake Gibson, the Blue Raiders’ real long-distance threat, drained a 3 from the right corner to extend the margin back out to nine points. A putback by T.J. Constant and Gibson’s driving, spinning, how-did-he-get-it-to-the-rim-between-all-the-arms layup gave Cleveland a 40-27 cushion with 5:46 left.
The Hurricanes never got closer than nine points the rest of the way.
“This is game 26 for us and I’m saying the same things I said in Game 2,” English said. “Maybe I have to realize it’s not going to happen for us this year. But we’re going to keep plugging away. We’ve got guys playing their butts off for us, but some of our guys are just babies out there playing against grown men.”
Gibson led Cleveland with 13 points.
Dozier scored 11 points for East Hamilton.
Cleveland girls 56, East Hamilton 34: The Lady Blue Raiders rebounded from a 78-40 thrashing at Bradley and cruised past the Lady Hurricanes.
Cleveland (11-7, 7-2) built a 21-10 first-quarter lead and then steadily pulled away from East Hamilton (6-15, 1-8).
Bre Ware scored 10 points for the Lady Raiders.
Kyndall Caudle led the Lady Hurricanes (6-15, 1-8) with nine points.
Summaries
Boys Game
East Hamilton 6 6 10 15 – 37
Cleveland 10 15 8 15 – 48
East Hamilton (37) – Rawls 5, Thompson 9, Chacko, Wilson, Sparks 2, Justin Dozier 11, Wingard 1, Heard, Beach 9, Fager, Rogers, Clark.
Cleveland (48) – Dennard 6, C. Ware 7, Bradford, Constant 4, Jay Gibson, Brown 3, Wykle 2, Jonathan Vecchio 12, Hill, K. Ware, Lay, Jake Gibson 13, McRee 1.
3-Point Goals – East Hamilton 1 (Rawls 1), Cleveland 6 (Jake Gibson 3, Vecchio 2, Brown 1).
Girls Game
East Hamilton 10 8 8 8 – 34
Cleveland 21 9 15 11 – 56
East Hamilton (34) – Moon, Kyndall Caudle 9, Scott 5, Wood 3, Gray 8, C. Zeh 4, Black, M. Zeh 4, Maston 1.
Cleveland (56) – Bre Ware 10, Scoggins 9, Lee, Stamatiadis 1, Barton, Crump, Mastin, Waldrup, Anderson 8, Morman 6, Phillips 4, Person 9, Thompson, McClendon 8, Stuzman 1.
3-Point Goals – East Hamilton 1 (C. Zeh 1), Cleveland none.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)