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By JESSE SMITHEY
ALCOA – Tai Cates got a nasty gash on his cheekbone that left him dizzy Monday night, but it likely paled to the pain he felt an hour or so later.
Alcoa’s freshman guard scored 34 points during the Tornadoes’ 76-70 loss to Sullivan South in the Class AA state sectional round.
The Tornadoes (21-11) fell short of their program’s 22nd state tournament appearance, while the visiting Rebels (30-5) earned the first state berth in their program’s history.
“It sucks because it’s the end of the season,” Cates said. “I’ll never be with this team again. I had at least two or three really good relationships, and they’re probably gone now.”
Tai Cates (30) of Alcoa. (Photo by Danny Parker)
Cates was hurt in a head-to-head collision with teammate Cam Burden with 4 minutes left in the first half and Sullivan South holding a 28-23 lead. Both Alcoa players sustained cuts but returned to the game later in the first half.
Burden, who also plays football for Alcoa’s state championship team, is a junior forward, so he will return for his senior year of basketball in 2020-21 along with Cates.
Next year was no consolation for Cates.
“I don’t really care about my next years,” Cates said. “I just wanted to win this one.”
Cates scored 27 points in the second half as the Tornadoes tried to rally from a 15-point deficit in the second quarter.
It wasn’t the scenario first-year Alcoa coach Ryan Collins expected to be in with his team coming off a 72-57 win over Fulton in last Thursday’s Region 2-AA championship game.
“I thought we were playing our best basketball of the season,” Collins said. “I thought we’d found a formula that really worked, and that formula was just fighting every possession, playing some lockdown ‘D’, not turning it over, and playing together.
“Tonight, we just seemed to for whatever reason abandon the formula that was working for us. South was just the better team. You look at a 32-minute game, it doesn’t matter about records, it doesn’t matter about who’s won a championship in the past. You just put it all on the line and see who’s better on a given night. That’s what’s fun about tournament basketball, and unfortunately, that wasn’t us tonight.”
Senior guard Nick Roberts scored 13 points and Burden added 10 for the Tornadoes.
“Tai was really good tonight,” Collins said. “I think Tai can get downhill on any team we face. He’s got to continue to work on a jump shot. He’s a freshman and somebody we’re really, really excited about going forward. But I think we’ve been so good because we’ve had such balance in our region games, and I don’t know how balanced we were tonight. We just struggled as a unit to find that rhythm.”
Sullivan South was led in scoring by senior guard Ben Diamond with 23 points and senior forward Gannon Chase with 15. Senior guard Cole Layne added seven points.
“Their key players were (Diamond and Layne),” Cates said. “I think we did a good job on (Layne). (Diamond), we were trying to contain him, but their teammates stepped up.”
Alcoa was 15 of 22 from the free-throw line; Cates was 8 of 10.
Sullivan South was 21 of 27 from the line with Diamond going 14 of 18, including 12 of 15 in the fourth quarter.
“Credit goes to Sullivan South. I thought they had a good game plan,” Collins said. “I thought they executed with more poise than we did tonight. I think for whatever reason we just could never find a rhythm offensively. We turned it over a lot early, we forced a lot early, then we settled for a lot of jump shots that they were giving us early.
“It’s not the formula that’s necessarily worked for us, but sometimes you feel like you can’t get the stop and you’ve got to answer really quick and you just kind of fall into a panic mode and never find that comfort zone and you’re always pressing. A lot of times when you’re pressing offensively, it’s not going to be your night.”
South’s Cooper Johnson hit a 3-pointer at the first-quarter buzzer for a 15-12 lead.
The Rebels increased the lead to seven in the second quarter and had a 33-27 halftime lead.
South started the third quarter with a 9-0 run.
Chase made two free throws, post Camden Necessary hit a baseline jump shot, Chase made two more free throws, and Diamond hit a 3-pointer for a 42-27 Rebels lead with 5 minutes, 43 seconds left in the third.
South’s Will Harris made a 3-pointer late in the third quarter for a 56-46 lead starting the fourth.
“Our message at halftime was we’re settling too much offensively,” Collins said. “We’ve got to go to the rim. We’re shooting too many jump shots. We’ve got to have a more concerted effort on the glass, and then we’ve got to find a way to dial in and get stops. What did we do? We settled early for a couple of jump shots, they hit a couple of shots and stretched it out to 15. Credit to our kids, though. We could have folded.”
Alcoa scored the first four points of the fourth, cutting the deficit to six, and was within seven on Cates’ three-point play with 49.4 seconds left.
The Tornadoes got no closer until Cates hit a 3-pointer at the final buzzer.
Minutes later, Collins was giving a tough postgame talk to his players.
“It’s so hard because you never really want to prepare that speech,” Collins said. “But I told the guys I’m really proud of how throughout the year, a year of highs and lows, they stayed the course and they showed up every day. They worked at it and kept just kept fighting. …
“We’ve had some great things happen. A region championship is something that will never be taken away, and I just spoke to the four seniors. They had no reason to believe in me as a new head coach, and from Day One, I felt like I got 100-percent confidence from all of them, and it started with their commitment and their buy-in. They’ve really set a high bar for our program going forward that we’re going to try to build on.”