MANCHESTER, Tenn. – The McMinn County Lady Cherokees picked the perfect time to win their biggest game of the year so far.
Facing the fourth-ranked Coffee County Lady Raiders here in the Region 3-AAAA semifinals at Coffee County High School Monday night, the hostesses were bigger physically, but their hearts weren’t quite as large, and a near-capacity crowd was probably ten times the size that McMinn brought.
But none of that mattered.
The bottom line is that the Lady Cherokees snapped an amazing 26-game winning streak and ended the season for the Lady Raiders as they prevailed in overtime, 53-51.
It will be an all District 5-AAAA final on Wednesday after the Bradley Bearettes cruised to a 45-21 victory in the first game here at the spacious Joe Frank Patch Memorial Gymnasium.
It’s very likely that Wednesday’s championship game will be moved to Cleveland and to Jim Smiddy Arena at Bradley, but those details had not been finalized on Monday night.
McMINN CO. 53, COFFEE CO. 51 (OT): This game was somewhat of a reminder of the old biblical battle between David and Goliath and we know who won that battle.
The results were similar thousands of years later.
The Lady Cherokees have been playing outstanding basketball in recent weeks as evidenced by their one-point loss to Bradley in the District championship. But on a night when the winner keeps playing and the loser calls it a season, the gals in black simply refused to back down.
Nobody told them about Coffee’s ranking or the winning streak that had been going since early December. And chances are good that nobody told them that the odds were against them winning in the Coffee County gym under such adverse circumstances.
“We just had to stick with what got us here, but did we just keep fighting or what?” McMinn County coach David Tucker blurted shortly after the final horn had sounded.
“I think the key was that we kept our composure in a very difficult environment. We could have gotten blown out in the first half when they went up by seven, but we didn’t. Every one of our players did their part and Allie Hansford made two huge free throws at the end, but it’s us and Bradley for the championship on Wednesday and that’s the way it should be.
“The best news is that we get to practice tomorrow afternoon,” Tucker added with a smile.
The Lady Raiders took advantage of their size by doing most of their first-half scoring in the paint while the Lady Cherokees had to settle for longer shots, but that was okay as McMinn sank five of their nine 3s for the game in the first quarter, including the last one by Brooklyn Stinnett that cut Coffee’s lead to 18-15 at the first break.
A 3 by Peytyn Oliver to start the second stanza knotted the score at 18 while a layup by Addie Smith with 6:21 showing tied the game again at 20-20.
The Lady Raiders then used a 10-3 run the rest of the way to take a 30-23 lead into the dressing room at halftime.
McMinn may have been down at that point, but they were never out as they started the second half with six straight points to stay close.
Taking advantage of their size inside, Coffee County got nine points from Chloe Gannon in the second half, including a big bucket with 3:06 remaining to tie the game at 41.
McMinn did a nice job of running the clock down, but a miss by Oliver on a drive down the lane as time expired sent the game into overtime.
Two straight buckets by Smith in the first minute of overtime gave McMinn a 45-41 lead and the Lady Raiders never regained the lead.
It turned into a free throw contest toward the end, but McMinn was able to sink eight of 11 while Coffee County was good on just three of six.
None were any bigger than the ones by Hansford, who stepped to the line with 17.6 seconds to play and sank a pair, extending a two-point lead to four. She then hit the second of two with 4.8 seconds to play for a 53-48 lead, making a final 3 by Coffee’s Olivia Vinson virtually meaningless.
“We’re really excited as none of us have ever been to the sectional round before,” said Hansford after scoring her only three points at the most critical point of the game.
“We were really playing for coach Tim McPhail, who had been our coach until this year. He has cancer and is no longer our coach, but we were playing for him,” she added.
Coffee County coach Joe Pat Cope had a long talk with his girls following the win and you could tell that he took the loss almost as hard as his players and maybe harder.
“It came down to two or three possessions, but we finally got the Oliver girl to miss a free throw, but failed to box out and they got it back. It was the little things that killed us,” he said later.
“The Oliver girl was by far the best player on the floor. She’s not very big, but she has a huge heart and she was the difference. But we just didn’t do a good job of finishing as our big girls were going away from the ball instead of toward it at the end.
“You know, it only takes a couple of bad plays to end your season in a game like this, so I guess we can start getting ready for next year,” he added with a smile.
Oliver was the leading scorer for McMinn as she finished with 22 points. Smith was next with 13.
Gannon was tops for Coffee Co. with 16 points while Vinson followed with 14.
Coffee County also had an unofficial 29-28 advantage in rebounds as Vinson had seven while Gannon and Jalie Ruehling both grabbed six for the Lady Raiders.
Hansford had 10 boards for McMinn while KP – short for Konstantina Papaioannou – grabbed six.
McMinn’s record is now 20-10 while Coffee County finishes a great season at 26-4.
BRADLEY 45, WARREN CO. 21: Bradley coach Jason Reuter said before the game ever started that he would be happy if his team just shot their seasonal average from the floor, which had been 47 percent from the field, 33 percent from long range and 61 percent from the free throw line.
They came real close to doing just that with 15 of 32 from the field for 46.9 percent, four of 12 from long range for 33.3 percent and 11 of 15 from the line for 73.3 percent.
“We played good defense again and we pulled it out late, which is something we don’t normally do,” said Reuter on his radio interview after the game.
“We knew they couldn’t guard us man-to-man, so we just decided to run the clock after we got a nice lead. We were bigger than them and we hang our hat on defense and that was the difference in this game.
“We had two days to get ready for this game, but it’s tournament time and we certainly didn’t want to lose. I brought my girls up here for a play day before the season began because I didn’t want them to be seeing this gym for the first time today, but we just need to keep battling,” he added.
A 12-8 lead after one quarter stretched to 21-12 by intermission. The Bearettes scored the first seven points of the second half for a 28-12 lead and the game was basically over at that point.
The only points scored by the Lady Pioneers in the fourth quarter came from the free throw line as Bradley just kept stretching the lead until the final horn.
Karsee Weber led the way for the Bearettes, now 28-3, with a dozen points while Hannah Jones and Harmonie Ware both had 11.
Kyra Perkins was the only Warren County player in double figures as she finished with 10 points.
Ashlan Crittenden and Jones both had five rebounds as Bradley won that battle too, 24-20. Perkins had six for the Lady Pioneers.
Warren County’s season ends at 24-8.
SEMIFINAL SUMMARIES
WARREN CO. 8 4 4 5 -- 21
BRADLEY 12 9 7 17 -- 45
WARREN CO. (21) – Kyra Perkins 10, J. Smartt, Sable Winfree 2, Hobbs 2, S. Smartt 2, Savannah Winfree 4, Kelsey, DeArmond, Burger 1, Neavey, Pegg, Taylor, Verge.
BRADLEY (45) – Crittenden 4, Carpenter, Karsee Weber 12, Hannah Jones 11, Swick 5, Brewer 2, Harmonie Ware 11, White, Wilcox, Lowe, Phillips.
3-POINT GOALS: Warren Co. none; Bradley 4 (Weber 2, Swick, Ware).
McMINN CO. 15 8 10 8 12 -- 53
COFFEE CO. 18 12 6 5 10 -- 51
McMINN CO. (53) – Addie Smith 13, Hansford 3, Gonzalez 7, Peytyn Oliver 22, Papaioannou 2, Stinnett 6, Moses.
COFFEE CO. (51) – Ferrell 4, Ruehling 3, Olivia Vinson 14, Reel 6, Chumley 5, Chloe Gannon 16, Channah Gannon 3.
3-POINT GOALS: McMinn Co. 9 (Smith, Gonzalez 2, Oliver 4, Stinnett 2); Coffee Co. 5 (Ruehling, Vinson 4).
(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)