Hot-shooting Sweetwater ends Lady Lions’ season
The Sweetwater girls’ basketball team rode the momentum of their hot shooting and double-digit halftime lead till the end Friday night at Red Bank. Sweetwater won 56-48 in the Region 3-AA quarterfinal.
The host Lady Lions (22-6) provided themselves with a healthy amount of good shot attempts, but converting those into points was a problem all game.
“It’s a tough game to end on,” Red Bank coach Bailey McGinnis said. “They couldn’t miss at times, and we never could get any rhythm going on offense. I just feel like we weren’t ready to play.”
After Red Bank’s high-energy defense forced some turnovers and turned them into paint points on the other end, Sweetwater (10-17) grabbed the lead late in the first quarter and made a 21-4 run that stretched nearly to halftime.
With an 11-point lead in their pocket at the break, the Lady Wildcats didn’t let up. They built a 17-point lead in the third quarter.
The Lady Lions clawed their way back to within eight in the final frame, but their struggles from 3-point range kept the District 6 No. 2 seeds from ever making a serious charge for the lead.
“Once you get to tournament time we try to save our legs, so we’ve been practicing our shooting a lot,” McGinnis said of her team’s preparation. “We shot it well against Signal Mountain in the district championship, but the one night we needed them to fall we couldn’t hit anything hardly.”
Abbey Barr led the Lady Wildcats with 13 points. Shelby Watson scored 11, and Mikalee Martin added 10. Red Bank’s Layla Babb led all scorers with 18 points. Bailey Lee checked in with 15, and Mya Kennebrew had 10.