The prolific scoring of Easton McCullough and her talented teammates from Farmington, Arkansas was too much for Greeneville to keep up with on Wednesday afternoon.
The Lady Greene Devils showed fight, but ended the Andrew Johnson Bank Ladies Classic with an 84-67 loss to the defending Arkansas Class 5A state champions in the tournament’s fifth-place game.
“Normally in our conference scoring 67 points is enough, but we were going against a juggernaut,” Greeneville coach Annette Watts said. “But I was proud of our kids. I think we played hard the whole game. We did some things right that are going to help us down the road.”
Sophomore guard Easton McCullough was the story of Wednesday’s contest as she poured in 38 points and set a new tournament record with 143 points over the course of four games.
McCullough got started quickly and nailed a pair of triples in the first two minutes for a quick 10-5 lead.
Shortly after that Greeneville’s top defender, Julia Woolsey, picked up her second foul and had to go to the bench. Watts did bring Woolsey back in before halftime, but she quickly picked up her third foul. Without her on the floor for most of the contest Greeneville had to change up its defensive game plan, and the Cardinals were able to take full advantage.
“After the second foul we couldn’t have her on (McCullough) and that changed a lot of what we wanted to do,” Watts said. “Then I shouldn’t have put her back in in the second quarter. That’s my fault, I should know better than to put a kid in with two fouls. I think that made a big difference down the stretch because she had to play timid.”
After consecutive buckets on the inside by Sadie Morrison Farmington was able to stretch the lead to 16-5.
Greeneville’s Allison Hayes broke the streak with a three-pointer from the corner, and Maria Lyde followed with six points to close the gap to 21-15 at the close of the quarter.
In the second quarter McCullough became a distributor and after Kameron Farish and Rheid Shirey hit from deep Farmington’s lead grew to 31-18.
McCullough followed with two more deep shots and the Lady Cardinals took their biggest lead of the first half at 44-25 with 2:14 left.
The Lady Greene Devils got going when they found Lyde in the paint for a bucket. Brylee Tullock followed with a steal that turned into a pair of free throws, but Farmington took a 48-32 lead into halftime.
In the first six minutes of the third quarter McCullough poured in 13 points as she got inside and drew contact. Her final layup pushed Farmington’s lead to 65-46.
Greeneville kept at it and scored nine points in the final minute of the period. Jordan Swatzell started that with a pair of free throws. Tullock then scored in transition and followed that up by taking a loose ball the other way for what turned into an old-fashioned-three-point play.
With three seconds left Lyde hit a pair of free throws to cut Farmington’s lead to 65-55.
On the first possession of the fourth quarter Woolsey went under the rim for a reverse that closed the gap to 65-57.
“We got to where we were making some shots and limiting them to one-and-done possessions. We showed some energy and heart there in that stretch. That’s what it takes to beat a team like that,” Watts said.
Greeneville hung around with two three-pointers from Swatzell, but they never got any closer as Farmington finished with an 84-67 win.
Lyde led Greeneville on Wednesday with 24 points, five rebounds and four assists. Tullock had 21 points, eight assists and five rebounds. Swatzell scored 11 points.
McCullough finished the day with 38 points, eight assists and six rebounds. Morrison had 14 points and 11 rebounds, Reese Thornton had 12 points and eight rebounds and Shirey had 12 points.
