BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — Rashid Moore, the Gatlinburg-Pittman boys’ basketball coach, labels himself as a defensive-minded coach.
“I really pride myself on defense, and this team has played good defense all year,” Moore said Wednesday, following a loss to Westview in the Class 2A state quarterfinals.
But as good as the Highlanders had been, the one or two stops they needed down the stretch never came to fruition.
Westview fended off a big G-P comeback at MTSU’S Murphy Center and advanced to Friday’s semifinal round with a 61-45 win, the final score hardly indicative of how close the game was throughout the second half.
Senior wing Quinn Coykendall led the Highlanders (27-5) with 17 points, making four 3-pointers in the second half.
But Gatlinburg-Pittman could never pull even or take the lead from Westview (24-7) in the first four minutes of the final quarter of play.
“I told them in the locker room that we didn’t play well enough to win. When you have that many turnovers (15) and give up that many offensive rebounds (nine), there’s a good chance that against a good team you’re not going to come out on top.
“It’s something you have to learn from and move forward.”
SmartBank is the proud sponsor of 5Star Preps postseason basketball coverage.
HOW THE GAME WAS WON
Senior-laden Gatlinburg-Pittman hit five 3s in the third quarter to cut its double-digit halftime deficit down to just 45-40 with a quarter remaining, and senior Mr. Basketball finalist Jayden Barton — who had 11 points on 3-for-15 shooting — knocked in two free throws in the first 9 seconds of the fourth to get G-P to within three of the lead.
The Highlanders last led with 6 minutes, 3 seconds left in the first quarter, and they could once again taste some momentum.
But over the next 4:27 of the fourth quarter, G-P missed its next seven shots, turned the ball over once and allowed Westview to get four defensive rebounds.
The Chargers took advantage, running their lead to 51-42 with 3:29 left to play.
Westview ran another minute off the clock after G-P missed a floater on its possession, and after Westview missed a 3, it got an offensive rebound and siphoned 30 more seconds off the clock until it called timeout with 2:03 to go.
Arden Smith, a 6-foot-7 senior forward who transferred from Dresden to Westview but who didn’t get eligible until the second half of the season, added a pair of punctuation dunks to push the lead to 13.
Coykendall hit his fifth-and-final 3 of the day with 1:11 remaining in the fourth, slicing Westview’s lead to 55-45.
Smith got two more dunks that whipped the Murphy Center into a frenzy in the final minute. He wound up with 21 points.
The Highlanders finished 1-for-12 shooting in the fourth.
SETTING THE STAGE
Westview made just its second-ever appearance in a state tournament on Wednesday, the first coming in 2016.
And the Chargers led at the break, 34-23.
Westview’s Smith hit a 3-pointer midway through the first quarter, spurring on what became a 9-0 run that gave the Chargers command, 13-5.
Gatlinburg-Pittman, though, hadn’t played a state tournament game since 1973.
And it showed in the early going, as the Highlanders made just two of their first 10 shots and had five turnovers in the opening six minutes.
Westview led just 16-12 after one quarter. Craig Huskey’s five points in the final stretch of the quarter helped G-P stay close. He went 3-for-3 from the floor in the first quarter for seven points while the rest of the Highlanders posted a combined 1-for-9 shooting clip in that span.
Barton’s first bucket came on a 3-pointer with 6:52 left in the first half, as he snapped his 0-for-3 start. That cut Westview’s lead to 20-17.
His second 3 came 4:37 later, trimming G-P’s deficit to nine (31-22) after Westview guard Graham Simpson — the star quarterback — hit back-to-back 3s for a 12-point lead with 2:35 remaining before the break.
The Highlanders continued to rely on perimeter shooting after halftime to manufacture points.
“We got a little hot, started making more shots,” Barton said. “I totally believed we were coming back.”
Coykendall and Barton each hit a 3 in the early minutes of the second half, and Gatlinburg-Pittman trailed 35-29 with 3:30 left in the third quarter.
Coykendall hit another 3 with 3:05 left in the third to cut Westview’s lead to 38-32.
Coykendall’s third 3 of the third at the 2:30 mark cut G-P’s deficit to 40-35.
“I knew that my teammates trusted me to make the shots,” he said. “We needed to score because we were down, so I just felt comfortable shooting them in the moment. It was a rhythm shot. They were double-teaming Jayden most of the time. That just left me open. I was just in the right place at the right time. Really, anybody probably would have hit those shots on our team. Just, I was the one in that position.”
G-P lefty Roger Matute swished in a trey with 32 seconds left in the third to make it just 45-40 Westview.
“We fought,” Moore said. “We probably could have executed the game plan a little better. But I’m extremely proud of the way they continued to fight. Got back in it.
“Down the stretch, a few plays went against us. If we could have found a way to make those plays here and there, you never know. But, they definitely continued to fight. I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.”