BRISTOL – The Greeneville girls basketball team battled with Dobyns-Bennett for 36 minutes on Thursday afternoon in the Doc Maples Holiday Hoops Tournament at Tennessee High, but the Lady Devils came up one shot short in a 54-51 overtime loss.
“We have to be more consistent,” Greeneville coach Annette Watts said. “You have to play defense the same way every night, no matter what, and we didn’t do that tonight. We have to get back to work on consistent defense, helping, talking, and boxing out. And on offense we have to run our stuff. We’re doing too much one-on-one stuff, and everybody else is caught standing because they don’t know what you are going to do.”
Greeneville went to the fourth quarter leading 32-29 but the Lady Indians found their stroke from the outside and swung in front. Through the first three quarters Dobyns-Bennett managed to make just one three-pointer, but in the fourth quarter it hit from deep three times with each of those shots giving them a three-point advantage.
The last one came from Ari Thomas with 1:58 left to play and it put Dobyns-Bennett in front 41-38.
With 22 seconds left Greeneville found itself in a 47-42 hole, but Kyla Jobe refused to let the Lady Devils go down without a fight. With 14 seconds remaining Jobe gave Greeneville a chance when she nailed a triple from the top of the key.
With eight seconds left the Lady Devils sent D-B’s Sally McReynolds to the free throw line and she gave them an opening when she missed the front end of her free attempts. Jobe ran the length of the floor and launched a high-arching triple from the left wing through contact that evened the score at 48-48 and sent the game to overtime.
“That was all Kyla Jobe,” Watts said. “She just gave herself a chance. She got in the air, twisted her body, and she knows to put a lot a arc on the shot. She had a tough shooting night and went a long time with a bunch of misses. I thought that rejuvenated her, but we just couldn’t get it going in overtime.”
In the extra period Maria Lyde got Greeneville going with a free throw and Jobe threw a shot from the lane over her shoulder for a 51-48 lead with 2:13 left to play. That was the last shot Greeneville would make on Thursday.
McReynolds evened the score at 51-51 when she knocked down a three-pointer from beyond the elbow with 1:26 remaining. Two free throws from McReynolds and one from Thomas in the final 32 seconds gave Dobyns-Bennett a 54-51 advantage.
Jobe tried once more to strike at the buzzer, but this time her shot was off the mark and the Lady Devils fell into the tournament’s loser bracket. They will meet Elizabethton on Friday at 3 p.m. at Tennessee High.
Thursday’s action started with the teams trading buckets. Matea Gray gave the Lady Devils the first lead with a triple, but D-B evened the score at 7-7 when Azzlyn Brown hit from deep.
Lyde gave Greeneville the lead back when she grabbed an offensive board and spun off a defender for a layup. Abby Adkins followed with another inside bucket and Greeneville went to the second quarter leading 11-9.
In the early portion of the second quarter Adkins scored four points for Greeneville, but with 1:54 left in the half the Lady Indians tied things at 17-17 when McReynolds sank a pair of free tosses.
A putback by Jadeah Releford put Dobyns-Bennett in front for the first time and the Lady Indians took a 21-18 lead into halftime.
In the third quarter Lyde and Adkins got going in the paint for Greeneville as they combined for 10 points and gave the Lady Devils a 31-25 lead.
Dobyns-Bennett got layups from Mary Cate Lively and Thomas in the final 31 seconds to close the gap to 32-29.
Jobe led Greeneville on Thursday with 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists, Adkins had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Lyde had 11 points.
McReynolds scored 18 points for Dobyns-Bennett and Thomas had 10.
