MURFREESBORO — It’s still been three years since the Cloudland girls basketball team has allowed 60 points. But Pickett County kept the state semifinal roadblock in place.
For the first time since winning their 1989 state championship, the Lady Bobcats advanced in the TSSAA tournament. And it came at Cloudland’s expense with Wednesday’s 54-31 win in the quarterfinals of the Class 1A BlueCross Basketball championships.
The Lady Highlanders, who finished 28-2, successfully slowed the Byrdstown club early — even rallying to take the lead at one point. But Pickett County (27-2) seized the momentum on back-to-back layups by Emmy Lowe, the latter an and-one.
“She just started taking over and got several drives on us,” Cloudland coach Matt Birchfield said. “Their transition offense killed us. They got a ton of runouts on us. We talked last week about getting back because they do such a great job on runouts, and that hurt us in the second and third quarters.”
Zoey Nicholas scored through contact to cap a 14-2 run in the second quarter, giving the Lady Bobcats a 33-16 lead.
The Lady Highlanders made just one field goal in the third quarter and couldn’t get closer than 19 points in the fourth.
FINISHING STRONG
While Pickett County did score 17 points off turnovers, the Lady ‘Landers excelled in one particular area — second chance points. Cloudland had 14, while dominating the offensive glass 15-4.
Izabella Christman accounted for seven of those offensive rebounds, and 10 total, in her final high school game, along with her five points.
“One thing I’ve always been good at is if we don’t make the shot, or if I get the shot and I miss it, I try my best to go back and get the rebound and try to put it back in,” Christman said, while reflecting on her senior class making three state trips in four years. “Every single year I’ve come here, it’s just been a blessing. Being able to finish up my last game here in Murfreesboro is literally a dream.
“Been with Coach Birchfield since I was in sixth grade and didn’t even know how to shoot a layup. It’s just been a blessing to play for this team.”
OUT OF HER SHELL
Cloudland got a team-high 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting and six rebounds from freshman Makinna Shell. Her fast-break layup gave the Lady Highlanders their only lead at 9-8, after erasing a 6-0 deficit.
“I enjoyed it,” Shell said of her first high school state tournament. ”I’ve learned a lot (from the seniors). Whenever I first came in, middle school basketball was a little slower pace, so they helped me speed my game up and just play faster.”
Ryan Turbyfill buried two 3-pointers to finish with six points. Makenzie Street added five, Saharra McKinney grabbed eight rebounds and Eowyn McCoury blocked two shots.
PICKETT PLAYS ON
Lowe shot 9-of-15 from the floor and led the Lady Bobcats with 23 points. Nicholas had 13 on 5-of-9 shooting along with six assists, combining with Lowe to hit 8-of-9 free throws.
“Our conditioning, I feel like we’re in better shape than anybody we play. We’ve worked hard on that,” Pickett County coach Brent Smith said. “We tried to speed (Cloudland) up early and they made some easy shots out of our zone press. We fell back, just kept them out of the things they liked to do that we saw on film.”
Those transition buckets helped the Lady Bobcats shoot 55% (22-of-40) while committing just four turnovers. Cloudland went 12-of-46 (26.1%) from the floor.
UP NEXT
Pickett County takes on Wayne County or South Fulton in Friday’s 1A semifinals at 3:15 p.m. Eastern.
Greenfield 55, North Greene 49
MURFREESBORO — The North Greene girls basketball team came close to pulling another stunner.
Greenfield had just enough in the tank to hold off the Lady Huskies 55-49 in Wednesday’s Class 1A state quarterfinals at the BlueCross Basketball championships.
Rayanna Fisher scored 21 points to lead the Yellowjackets (22-10), shooting 5-of-10 from the floor and 9-of-10 from the foul line. Emma Alford (12) and Anastyn Vujicic (11) also hit double figures, while Brenley Little had nine.
Haley Bailey led North Greene (26-11) with her double-double, scoring 18 points with 10 rebounds on 8-of-15 shooting. Hannah Miller shot 5-of-8 and added 11 points with three blocks. Loren Blevins (8) and Kaydence Marshall both hit two 3s. But the Lady Huskies made just 3-of-9 free throws, compared to 19-of-28 by Greenfield.
The Yellowjackets face Moore County in Friday’s semifinal round at 1:45 p.m. Eastern.
