BY BRIAN HAMILTON
SEYMOUR – Cocke County used an early 20-0 run to jump out on Seymour and never looked back, as the Lady Red defeated the Lady Eagles 56-20 en route to their third consecutive district title game.
“Everybody is zero and zero right now,” Cocke County coach Boddie Bible said after the game. “Everybody wants to beat the number one seed coming and we’ve played here a couple of weeks ago and Seymour played us a good game. I challenged them to guard and we guarded phenomenally tonight. We fouled them a few too many times on jump shooters, but we went on a 20-0 from midway through the first quarter until towards the end of the second quarter. They were trying to run offense out close to half court and when you do that teams have a hard time scoring. We hang our hat on guarding and we did a really nice job of that tonight.”
Cocke County’s Chloe Niethammer (33) attempts a three while Seymour’s Kali Fisher defends. Photo by Brian Hamilton
The Lady Red led 11-3 at the end of the first quarter and continued their onslaught into the second period. Ava Wheeler sank a pair of free throws to extend the Cocke County lead to 15-3, which was followed by a steal and layup by Chloe Niethammer to make the score 17-3 with just over six minutes left.
A jumper by Karmine Carmichael gave Cocke County a 19-3 lead and a pair of Niethammer free throws would stretch the Lady Red lead to 21-3 with 4:19 remaining.
The lead would balloon to 21 when Brooklyn Clevenger drained a three to make the score 24-3 with just under four minutes left. Bailey Tidwell would finally end the drought when she split a pair of free throws to cut the Lady Eagles’ deficit to 24-4 with 2:46 left.
Blake Clevenger grabbed a rebound and put it back up for a 26-4 lead with 2:25 remaining. Seymour finally scored its first field goal since early in the first quarter when Kenzie Warner hit a jumper to make the score 26-6 with 2:09 left.
Emily Schultz hit a layup with 29 seconds left and the Lady Eagles would go to halftime trailing 26-8.
A layup by Kali Fisher would cut the Seymour lead to 30-12 with 6:22 left in the third quarter, but Ellie Proffitt would answer with a free throw line jumper to push the Cocke County lead back to 32-12. A three by Brooklyn Clevenger would give the Lady Red a 35-12 lead with 5:17 to go.
A driving layup by Blake Clevenger would put Cocke County ahead 40-14 with 2:48 left. Clevenger followed that with another layup to stretch the lead to put the Lady Red ahead 42-17 with 1:35 remaining in the third quarter.
A Makenna Sharp layup made the score 42-19 with just over one minute to go, but Cocke County would take a commanding 43-19 lead into the fourth quarter.
Wheeler opened the fourth quarter with a three-pointer to give Cocke County a 46-19 lead. A pair of baskets by Proffitt would stretch the Lady Red lead to 53-20 with 2:21 remaining.
“I don’t have a very deep bench,” Bible said of resting his starters in the fourth quarter. “Javin Campbell’s still hurt, so I had to leave Ellie (Proffitt) and Chloe Niethammer out there, you know, she’s my sixth man and I was just praying they didn’t get hurt, but I had to play them.”
Cocke County would go on to win 56-20, as Seymour only scored one point in the fourth quarter, getting outscored 13-1 in the final frame.
“We scored a bunch of points tonight, but we were only 3-of-17 from behind the arc,” Bible said. “I told them that number don’t bother me too bad, because we can make those shots. Tonight, we just didn’t need them.”
Karmine Carmichael led all scorers with 16 points, while Blake Clevenger finished with 12 points. Ellie Proffitt, Ava Wheeler and Brookelyn Clevenger each added seven points apiece for the Lady Red.
Seymour’s top scorers were Kali Fisher and Makenna Sharp, who finished with five points apiece.
Cocke County (28-4) will face Northview Academy (21-6) in the district championship on Monday night at 7:30 p.m. at Seymour High School. Seymour (10-18) will play Austin-East (15-13) in the third place game at 6 p.m.
“Obviously, Brooke Shelley knows how to get it done, but at this point you just play whoever’s in front of you,” Bible said. “Most importantly, we secured a home region game next Friday and that was our goal coming into today.”