There were no upsets in the semifinal round of the District 6-AAA basketball tournament being played at Red Bank’s Susan Ingram Thurman Gymnasium Friday night, but three of the games were total blowouts with only one a whole lot closer.
The second-seeded Soddy Daisy girls got off to somewhat of a slow start before beating Red Bank by a 70-29 final while the second-seeded Signal Mountain boys had to work a little harder before defeating Central, 50-50, in the closest game of the day.
And both number one seeds breezed with the Signal Mountain girls blasting Hixson 45-13 and the top-seeded Red Bank boys blowing out Soddy Daisy, 72-47.
The tournament concludes on Tuesday with consolation and championship games. The Red Bank-Hixson girls game starts things off at 4, followed by the Soddy Daisy-Central boys at 5:30. Then at 7, the Signal Mountain girls will face Soddy Daisy with the Red Bank boys facing Signal Mountain around 8:30.
SODDY DAISY GIRLS 70, RED BANK 29: The Lady Lions got off to a great start and had a 19-15 lead after one quarter, but it was all Soddy Daisy the rest of the way as the Lady Trojans had a 55-10 scoring advantage over the last three quarters.
Soddy Daisy coach Katie Wright was somewhat frustrated with her team’s inability to play well in the first eight minutes, but she was all smiles when talking about the final 24.
“I didn’t think we played well at the start as the ball just seemed to bounce away from us,” she said shortly after her team improved to 19-11.
“I’m just thankful that my girls didn’t lose their composure. I thought that Hannah Patterson, Abby Faires and Alivia Hall all stepped up and played well.
“We had the best four days of practice this week we’ve had all season, so we were ready to play. It just took us a minute to get untracked,” she added with a smile.
While Red Bank had a good start with Journey Holloway scoring 16 of her game-high 25 points, the rest of the game was a complete struggle for the Lady Lions as Destiny Wiley scored Red Bank’s first bucket in the second quarter with just 1:30 remaining before halftime.
The Lady Trojans were well on their way to victory by that point.
Hall set the pace for Soddy Daisy with 23 points that included five 3s while Patterson added 19. Faires was next with nine points.
Holloway’s 25 was tops for Red Bank as no other Lady Lion had more than two points.
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN BOYS 55, CENTRAL 50: The Eagles won the game and improved to 19-9 with the win, but it was anything but easy as the Pounders made a game of it in the fourth quarter.
Signal’s 16-13 lead after one quarter stretched to 32-19 by halftime and the difference was 47-34 with one quarter remaining.
Central’s offense came to life as they scored 14 of the first 15 points to knot the score at 48-48 with 2:31 to play following a jumper from the wing by Matthew Sharpe.
Signal Mountain didn’t connect on a single field goal in that final stanza, but they were able to make eight of 10 free throws to avoid the upset.
Signal Mountain coach Steve Redman has seen his teams at both ends of the spectrum where they scored more than 30 points in a quarter while at other times seeing them get blanked, but he was just thankful to escape with a win over a scrappy Central team.
“The good news is that we made free throws at the end. We knew that Central was going to make a run and they did, but we were able to weather the storm,” Redman began.
“That was way more exciting than I hoped it would be as we just didn’t take care of the ball in the fourth quarter. But at this point, it’s all about surviving and advancing, so I’m just pleased we won. It doesn’t have to be pretty to be effective,” he nodded.
Christopher Kennedy captured scoring honors for the Eagles with 20 points while Blake Wolfard and Andrew Matukewicz were also in double figures with 14 and 11, respectively.
Drew Williams scored 19 points to lead the Purple Pounders while Sharpe finished with 15.
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN GIRLS 45, HIXSON 13: Games like this aren’t fun to cover, much less write about, but that’s just the way it is at times.
Hixson coach Madison Rogers admitted before the game began that her team really didn’t stand a chance against a talented team like the Lady Eagles and she was right.
The Lady Wildcats have made great progress in Rogers’ time at the helm, but this game was never close as Signal Mountain had a 25-0 lead after one quarter and scored the first 30 points before Kahlia Collier’s two free throws with 2:30 left in the second quarter put Hixson on the board.
The difference was 34-4 at the half, so there was a running clock for the entire second half.
Signal Mountain coach Kendra Bell has been in situations like this before and there really isn’t a good way to address it.
“We haven’t played all week and I needed to get my starters some time on the floor just doing a little running to stay in shape, but we can just move on to Tueday’s game,” Bell began.
“I got to play all of my younger kids and that’s good as they need experience too, but there really isn’t anything to say about games like this,” she added.
Carlee Lowry scored 14 points in the first quarter alone and finished with 23 to lead the Lady Eagles. Ashlyn Rock was also in double figures with 11.
Collier scored 10 of Hixson’s 13 points.
RED BANK BOYS 72, SODDY DAISY 47: The Lions tried to duplicate what the Signal Mountain girls had done right before them as they raced to a 24-0 lead before Aidan Haile got the Trojans on the board with 30.5 seconds left in the first quarter by sinking the second of two free throws.
He added another charity toss 12 seconds later before swishing a 3 at the buzzer to cut Red Bank’s lead to 28-5.
Actually, the Trojans played well in the final three quarters as the Lions only had a 44-42 advantage during that time, but that first quarter was simply too much to overcome.
Red Bank coach Nick Fike had witnessed some outstanding practices this week, so he was glad to finally face someone other than his own players.
“It’s been a week since we last played, but we had a really good week of practice. I thought we did a great job from the opening tip. My guys were chomping at the bit to play and I felt like we came out and played really hard.
“Good things normally happen when you play hard. I came out expecting us to play at a high level and we did for the most part,” he added after his team improved to 23-7.
Anthony Bonner had the hot hand as he scored 21 of his 30 points in the first half. Kendrick Lloyd and Jaylen Rice were also in double figures for the Lions with 14 and 12 points, respectively.
Jonathan Love and Logan Williams both scored eight points to lead the Trojans while Haile followed with seven and Nathan Landtroop six.
Soddy Daisy did have an unofficial 23-19 advantage in rebounds as Love had five and Landtroop four. Bonner topped the Lions with six.
GIRLS SEMIFINAL RESULTS
RED BANK 19 5 5 0 -- 29
SODDY DAISY 15 22 17 16 -- 70
RED BANK (29) – Wade, Wiley 2, Montgomery, Duer 2, Ervin 2, Bullock, Journey Holloway 25, Aguilar, Gillespie.
SODDY DAISY (70) -- Edmondson 1, Alivia Hall 23, Faires 9, Ward 2, Pourfarzib, Jenkins 4, Renfro 7, Stewart 1, Hannah Patterson 19, Spencer 1, Hughes.
3-Point Goals: Red Bank 1 (Holloway); Soddy Daisy 8 (Hall 5, Patterson 2, Faires).
HIXSON 0 4 3 6 -- 13
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN 25 9 7 4 -- 45
HIXSON (13) – Kahlia Collier 10, A. Collier 2, Plank, Swanson 1, Lee, Douglass, White, Brown, Moore, Beach, Kaylor.
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN (45) – Walker, Roberson 2, Clark 3, Redman, Carlee Lowry 23, Ashlyn Rock 11, Griffith, Bohman, Edwards 2, Provonsha, Tate 2, Hilvers, Nelson 2.
3-POINT GOALS: Hixson none; Signal Mountain none.
BOYS SEMIFINAL RESULTS
CENTRAL 13 6 15 16 -- 50
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN 16 16 15 8 -- 55
CENTRAL (50) – V. Powell, Patillo, Charles 3, Taylor 2, K. Powell 3, Yearby 4, Sanderfer 3, Drew Williams 19, Matthew Sharpe 15, Kendrick 2.
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN (55) – Andrew Matukewicz 11, Timblin 2, Christopher Kennedy 20, Blake Wolfard 14, Zimmerman, Thompson 8.
3-Point Goals: Central 5 (Williams 3, Sanderfer, K. Powell); Signal Mountain 2 (Kennedy 2).
SODDY DAISY 5 14 11 17 -- 47
RED BANK 28 16 18 10 -- 72
SODDY DAISY (47) – Bowman 3, Haile 7, Mull, Love 8, Landtroop 6, Angel 5, Williams 8, Hughes 4, Gravley 2, Gooden 4.
RED BANK (72) – Tanner 2, Anthony Bonner 30, Jaylen Rice 12, Johnson 2, Kendrick Lloyd 14, Stewart 3, Rizer 2, Crutcher 2, Alex, Mitchell, Wilbur 5, Hambrick, Owens.
3-Point Goals: Soddy Daisy 4 (Williams 2, Love, Haile); Red Bank 3 (Lloyd, Stewart, Wilbur).
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)