Relive the top athletic moments of the 2016-17 school year this summer as sports editor and Northeast Tennessee beat writer Nate Hubbard looks back at indelible highlights for Sullivan Central, Sullivan East, Tennessee High and King University.
The gym was rocking.
The lead was 14.
And yet, Sullivan East boys basketball coach John Dyer was not nearly ready to accept the growing feeling all around him that the greatest dream of his professional life was about to come true.
Less than two minutes later, early in the fourth quarter of the March 6, 2017, sub-state clash between East and the Christian Academy of Knoxville, that changed.
Stepping back well behind the 3-point line after setting a screen for superlative point guard Gavin Grubb, Cole Green – the kid with the torn ACL over the summer, the guy whose entire senior season once appeared in jeopardy – collected the pass and buried the trey to give the Pa-triots a 22-point advantage.
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“When Cole hit that 3,” Dyer said looking back nearly four months later, “I knew we were going to win. That was the first time that I thought we were really going to win this thing.”
East’s top athletic moment of the 2016-17 school year may have no parallel in the annals of Patriot history.
“It honestly just gives me chills,” Green said.
Outside of Hollywood, dreams don’t often come true in the fashion that materialized for the Patriots against CAK.
Entering the night, Dyer had won more than 500 games in his 33-year coaching career and made such an impression as the hoops leader at East for the past 29 years that the gym had al-ready been named in his honor back in 2015.
The only thing missing for Dyer was a trip to the state tournament, a destination that had dangled tantalizingly and cruelly just out of reach three times in the previous seven seasons since East’s move to Class AA with a trio of regional championships in 2010, 2012 and 2013 fol-lowed by narrow home sub-state defeats in Bluff City.
Things went well from the opening tip for the Patriots against CAK as they worked their crafty tip-off play to get Aaron Frye a layup seconds into the game and Green followed moments later by draining his first 3-point attempt of the night for a 5-0 lead.
“We had no comfort ever in any of those first three sub-state games – and that gave us a com-fort,” Dyer said.
Still, CAK, which just a season earlier earned a sub-state road win at Elizabethton and returned every significant player from the 2015-16 state squad, carved out a 16-15 lead after the first quarter.
At the half, East clung to a 32-29 advantage.
A dominant third quarter lifted East to a 14-point lead heading into the fourth quarter, but it remained far too early to make hotel reservations in Murfreesboro, especially when CAK scored the opening bucket of the final period to reduce its deficit to a dozen.
Then came 90 seconds that will live on as pure Patriot perfection.
A Frye 3-pointer boosted East’s lead back to 15. Ethan Whitley followed with a bucket. Frye hit two free throws.
And then there was Green drifting back, letting loose and causing the crowd at the Patriot Palace inside the Dyer Dome to dissolve into undiluted delirium.
“I felt like I had enough space and I was feeling good that night,” Green recalled. “I just kind of let it fly and it went in. From there we had all the momentum. That’s probably the biggest shot I’ve hit at East. There’s no doubt about it.”
Timeout CAK with 6:21 showing on the clock. A 10-0 run. A 56-34 lead. A first-ever state tour-nament berth for the Patriots in a vice grip.
A coach with his hands on his head in elated disbelief, just a few minutes away from letting joyful tears flow, from embracing his wife, Cindy, of more than three decades in a hug that de-fined happiness, from cutting down the net, from celebrating in his signature style with a locker room chug of a Dr. Enuf.
“We were confident,” Dyer said. “We really thought we were going to beat them, but nothing like that.”
After Green’s 3-pointer, his final field goal in a 19-point performance that tied sophomore Dustin Bartley for game-high honors, East made five of six free throws over the next two minutes to extend the spurt to 15-0 and its lead to 27.
East’s advantage never slipped under 20 points again as the Patriots secured a 73-50 win.
“I’ll be watching that game so many times,” Green said during an interview Friday, adding that he relishes on each viewing seeing the reaction of his mom and grandma rejoicing in the crowd after his 3-point dagger.
“I actually watched that game this morning – I’m not joking when I say that. … I’ll always have that and can tell my kids about it.”
In the state quarterfinals 10 days later, East went toe-to-toe with eventual state champion Maplewood for more than a half – leading by as many as seven points in the second quarter – before eventually succumbing in a 71-55 setback.
Now Grubb is getting ready for a year at Moravian Prep in the hopes of improving his college prospects. After a standout career as a three-sport star at East, Frye has signed with the Walters State Community College baseball program. Green, who on Saturday marked a year since the MRI that confirmed his ACL tear, is preparing to take the court next season for Johnson Univer-sity.
“I would have never dreamed when I tore my ACL that this is the position I’d be in,” Green said Friday.
That same sentiment holds true in Green’s mind for a long-range 3 and a sub-state triumph that months later remain nothing short of sublime.
“It’s always going to be there and it’s a great memory to have,” he said. “We all played so well. We couldn’t have played better as a team.”
More memorable moments
> Hobbled East quarterback Aaron Frye scrambled for the go-ahead score on an 11-yard touchdown run in September on the second play of overtime and the Patriots held off Seymour for a 43-36 triumph on the gridiron. Jake Crumley, Gunner Griffith and Hunter Eads, who also nabbed a TSSAA Class A/AA state shot put title in May, were among the other standouts for East in the wild contest, which helped boost the Patriots to a 9-1 regular season, matching the best regular-season mark in school history.
> East wrestler Allison Davis capped her dominant high school career in style in February, needing just 54 seconds to pin her opponent and claim her third straight TSSAA all-classes girls 120-pound state title. Davis is the only multi-time female state champion across all sports at East.
> The East girls basketball squad finally got over the hump against longtime nemesis Eliza-bethton in January, earning a 64-48 win to stop a 15-game skid against the Cyclones and their foes’ overall 44-game winning streak in regular-season Three Rivers Conference competition. The Patriots went on to post an undefeated record in regular-season league play on the way to their first conference title since 2001.
> The East volleyball, baseball and softball teams all failed to make deep postseason runs, but they all got to enjoy a regular-season triumph over fierce non-conference rival Tennessee High. Seven volleyball seniors earned their first varsity win over the Vikings in September, the base-ball team defeated THS for the first time since 2013 with an 11-6 win in March and the softball squad scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning for a 6-5 triumph over THS in April before suffering a 4-3 setback in the May rematch.
> A season after earning its first-ever district tournament title, the East girls golf squad pulled off the feat again in September, recording a team score of 178 to win the District 1-A/AA cham-pionship by 10 strokes over University High. McKayla Torbett, who went on to represent East in state competition, just missed out on the individual district title, losing in a playoff after shooting an 82.