ROGERSVILLE – Greeneville ran into a hungry group of Chiefs on Tuesday night and suffered a disappointing 75-49 loss to Cherokee.
Cherokee was looking to make a statement. Greeneville had won 12-straight regular season games against District 2-3A competition. Greeneville had won 18-straight versus Cherokee. Cherokee had not beaten Greeneville since January 23, 2013 and had not beaten them in Rogersville since that same day. The Lady Chiefs celebrated Senior Night and aimed to end all of those streaks that they were on the losing end of. They succeeded.
It was a true back-and-forth affair for most of the first half. 10 lead changes and 4 ties occurred in the first half. But after Cherokee caught fire at the end of the half everything changed. The Lady Chiefs ended the first half on a 14-3 run and started the second half on a 10-0 run for a 24-3 run bridging between the first and second halves. The Lady Devils could never catch up and were fighting from behind all second half until the game was lost.
“The whole second quarter I felt like they just beat us and beat us and we got down on ourselves and nobody would pick us up. I kept trying different things and nobody wanted to take the horse by the reins and go and I do think we became complacent,” Lady Devils Head Coach Annette Watts explained.
Brylee Tullock and Maria Lyde scored 15 points each to lead Greeneville in scoring. Julia Woolsey added 12. Cherokee’s Rylee Sivert led all scorers with 21 points. Kenady Deal scored 19 points and Brooke Nelson scored 14 points. Cherokee hit 12 three-pointers in Tuesday’s win. Greeneville shot 32.7% from the field while Cherokee shot an even 50%.
Greeneville’s eight-game win streak was snapped and the Lady Devils are now 17-9 (4-1).
The first quarter featured lots of action. 8 lead changes and 2 ties in total. Maria Lyde won the opening tip and tipped it to Brylee Tullock and the senior guard raced to the bucket and was fouled four seconds in and hit both foul shots to lead 2-0 only four seconds in. Tullock assisted Julia Woolsey for a layup and a 4-0 lead before Chloe Pearson sank a three-pointer for Cherokee’s first basket.
Kenady Deal briefly gave Cherokee a 5-4 lead with a layup before Maria Lyde stole it back with a layup on the baseline. Deal sank her first of multiple three-pointers and gave Cherokee an 8-6 advantage. Lyde tied it briefly with a pair of free throws before Deal lifted Cherokee back ahead with a floater. Woolsey sank a layup to tie it, 10-10, before Tullock helped snatch the lead back with a layup.
Brooke Nelson came back and nailed a triple for yet another lead change. Julia Woolsey’s layup with over a minute left signaled another lead change with Greeneville ahead 14-13, but Elizabeth Coward sank a pair from the charity stripe and gave Cherokee a 15-14 lead after a back-and-forth first quarter.
Greeneville took the lead back with a three-point bomb from Tullock from the top of the arc for a 17-15 lead. Pearson’s shot off the glass knotted the score and Addie Lawson’s transition layup gave Cherokee a 19-17 lead. Rylee Sivert made her first bucket of the night with a layup in the low post and created the largest margin of the night at just four points. Maria Lyde scored four-straight and tied the score again, 21-21.
The game changed when Rylee Sivert scored six-straight and stretched Cherokee’s lead to six and Addie Lawson drained a three-pointer a few plays later and created a 30-23 lead. Elizabeth Coward strengthened that lead with a three-point shot and Sivert’s next bucket created a double-digit advantage for the Lady Chiefs.
Cherokee led Greeneville 35-24 headed into halftime.
The Lady Chiefs started big in the third quarter with a four-point possession. Rylee Sivert netted a foul shot and missed the second of two, but an offensive tip out led to a deep three-pointer by Kenady Deal. Brooke Nelson and Kenady Deal drained back-to-back three-point bombs and rounded out a 10-0 run to begin the third frame and cap off a 24-3 run stretching from the second to third.
“We work every day on defense. If we don’t talk we run. Tomorrow we’re going to run double if we don’t talk. Because it killed us tonight. We didn’t switch out, we didn’t get out on shooters, we just weren’t ourselves,” Coach Watts stated.
Addie Lawson threw up a heat check and it reached the bottom of the net and extended Cherokee’s lead. Brylee Tullock was given too much space in transition and sank a three-pointer for Greeneville’s first field goal of the second half five minutes in. Both squads scored back-and-forth for a few moments and Greeneville cut it to 16 before Sivert scored four-straight to end the period.
Greeneville trailed Cherokee 54-34 headed into the fourth.
Kenady Deal sank her fourth triple of the night and created a 23-point advantage early into the fourth. Greeneville could never recover and Cherokee continued extending the lead. Rylee Sivert’s three-pointer halfway through the fourth gave Cherokee a 70-44 lead. Both teams emptied the benches with 3:42 left in the game.
Greeneville suffered their first District 2-3A loss in two seasons with a 75-49 loss.
Brylee Tullock and Maria Lyde scored 15 points each to lead Greeneville in scoring. Julia Woolsey added 12. Cherokee’s Rylee Sivert led all scorers with 21 points. Kenady Deal scored 19 points and Brooke Nelson scored 14 points.
Greeneville rounds out this week with their final District 2-3A showdown at Volunteer on Friday.
Coach Watts spoke about what needed to be fixed going into Friday. “Energy. Women play on emotion. We work on emotion and we play on energy. And that’s just God given. And he gives it to you to go use. And we didn’t use it tonight.”
