The Greeneville girls basketball team got the season started the right way on Thursday night by shutting down Tri-Cities Christian in the second half to claim a 57-40 win.
“I’m really happy with tonight,” Greeneville coach Annette Watts said. “Maria Lyde came alive and did great scoring the ball. Matea Gray did some really good things. Julia Woolsey, a freshman, played like a junior. We saw a lot of really good things tonight.”
Much of Thursday’s first half was closely contested and with two minutes to go in the second quarter the Lady Devils found themselves trailing 25-23. That is when they seemed to find a jolt of intensity and scored 10 unanswered points going into intermission.
Maria Lyde started things by aggressively grasping a missed free throw and sending it back up. She was fouled and tied the game on a pair of free tosses. Next Kyla Jobe was fouled trying to take a steal coast to coast. She made good on her free opportunities for a 27-25 lead that held the rest of the way.
In the final minute Matea Gray twice swiped the ball from the Lady Eagles. The first set up Allison Hayes for a pair of free throws, and the next resulted in a transition layup by Hayes at the buzzer.
Greeneville went to halftime leading 33-25 after trailing 25-23 just 1:43 earlier.
Gray, inserted in the starting lineup for the first time, was a pesky defender with eight steals on Thursday, and was key in using her defense to create offense on several occasions.
“Defensively she will dog you, she will run through passes, she does the dirty work,” Watts said. “She’s going to get better and better, because she listens and she soaks everything in.”
The Lady Devils’ closing run was also done without senior center Abby Adkins on the floor after she picked up her second foul. That was important for Watts to see because Greeneville returns no varsity experience on the bench, and she needed to see how her new girls would handle a tough situation.
“To survive a quarter and a half without Abby Adkins on the floor was huge,” Watts said. “We’re going to have foul problems and these girls needed that experience. At the same time those older girls need to understand they have to play defense with their feet, because you foul when you play defense with your hands.”
In the second half with Adkins in the paint the Lady Devils’ defense got better and through the first 13 minutes they only gave up six points.
“We kept changing things up on defense in the second half and that bothered them,” Watts said. “As small as we are we are going to have to do that this year. We can’t rely on things that have worked in the past, we have to find what works for this team.”
On the other end of the floor Julia Woolsey got the offense going with a smooth runner followed by a three-pointer from the right wing that moved the lead to 38-25.
Next Lyde and Adkins stepped away from towering post defender, Janell Tabor, for a pair of mid-range jumpers. The third quarter ended on a breakaway layup by Gray and Greeneville held a 47-29 lead.
The inside duo of Lyde and Adkins scored Greeneville’ first six points of the fourth quarter and with 5:11 left to play the Lady Devils held their biggest lead at 53-31.
Over the final three minutes TCC got two three-pointers from Ella Jaworski and another from Emery Haws, but the lead was never in question.
Thursday’s first quarter began with the team’s trading buckets and the score stayed near even. Greeneville led for the first time at 7-5 when Woolsey took a steal the distance. Less than 20 seconds later Gray turned a steal by Jobe into two points.
TCC went back in front on triples from Jaworski and Michaela Dixon, but Greeneville closed the period leading 19-15.
Early in the second quarter Greeneville struggled to get shots to fall and that allowed TCC to pass it up before the closing surge put the Lady Devils in control.
Lyde led Greeneville on Thursday with 18 points, six rebounds, three steals and two blocks. Jobe had 11 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and five steals. Gray had eight points and eight steals. Adkins had seven points, eight rebounds and four assists, and Woolsey had seven points, six rebounds and three steals.
Jaworski led TCC with 15 points and Haws scored 12.
BOYS
Tri-Cities Christian 59, Greeneville 55
The Greeneville boys basketball will not have their full complement of players until football season ends. On Thursday night the hoops season got started anyway with a largely junior varsity roster against Tri-Cities Christian and the evening ended in a 59-55 loss.
The Devils went into the contest with only three expected rotation players available, and despite an admirable effort from the younger Devils they eventually ran out of gas at the end of the night.
Offense was hard to figure out early for Greeneville as TCC threw their defensive focus at center Trey Thompson and the rest of the Devils could not convert on the opportunities left for them.
On the other end of the floor the Eagles got seven points from Will Holmes and six points from Lofton Looney as they jumped in front 13-6.
Thompson got loose for a full-court layup at the end of the period, but the Devils still trailed 15-8.
In the second quarter Greeneville put the ball in Thompson’s hands at the top of the formation, and early that resulted in open looks for Yordan Mills who hit a pair of triples to close the gap to 15-14.
Dom Tweed sank a toe-on-the line two and Ryan Maggert hit from deep as Greeneville held close at 20-19.
With 2:56 left in the first half Thompson reached under the rim and somehow got an underhand roll to fall from behind the backboard. He was fouled on the play and gave Greeneville the lead at 22-20.
Thompson beat the buzzer with a triple and sent Greeneville to halftime leading 27-24.
With 4:46 left in the third quarter TCC went back in front at 33-32 when Looney spun through the lane for a lay in.
The lead was short lived as Greenville answered with triples from Tweed and Mills. With 20 seconds left in the quarter Maggert got a runner to fall to give Greeneville its biggest lead at 45-35.
Elijah Carmack ended the period with a three-pointer that closed the gap to 45-38.
With cramps to two key players slowing down the Devils in the fourth quarter the Eagles swung in front in the final period.
The Devils last lead came at 50-49 when Thompson nailed a step-back three-pointer with two minutes left.
TCC scored the next seven points while their defensive pressure knocked the young out of rhythm.
Ryan Jobe gave Greeneville a chance when he nailed a three-pointer with 22 seconds left to cut the lead to 56-53, but the Devils could not find the winning play at the end.
Thompson finished the night with 24 points while Mills put in 16. Looney scored 21 points for TCC and Carmack had 13.
