The Austin-East Roadrunners took on the Frederick Douglass Red Devils in a TSSAA Class 2A state tournament quarterfinal at the Murphy Center on Thursday, March 14, 2024, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Frederick Douglass boys won 72-49. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — The final statistics were almost too scary on paper to contemplate.
And the much-anticipated Austin-East vs. Douglass matchup in the Class 2A quarterfinals never materialized into the heavyweight showdown most hoped for; rather, the game was marred and slowed by unrelenting stoppages in play.
Just consider …
- 52 total foul calls
- 52 total turnovers
Freshman guard Condis Cherry scored 16 points and older brother Shane Cherry 14, but the Austin-East Roadrunners never led in a 72-49 loss to unbeaten Douglass.
“I don’t think we can get fined in high school,” Austin-East coach Denard Bertram joked in the postgame. “So I’m still going to stay away from (criticizing officials). But I felt like — and no disrespect to the other six teams that are here (in 2A) — today was going to be the best game, the state championship game.
“I felt like the referees, they didn’t want it to get out of hand. I felt like they over-asserted themselves in the game, which really had both teams on their heels. And when you look at it statistically, the score looks so bad. Lopsided. But if you were at the game, the closeness of the game was not indicated by the score.”
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State runner-up a season ago to Alcoa, Douglass (34-0) will take on Whites Creek (26-5) in a state semifinal Friday.
Austin-East (24-11) trailed by 15 at half Thursday and cut the deficit to three points (37-34) with 4 minutes, 36 seconds to play in the third quarter.
Douglass’ swarming defense, coupled with 28.1 percent shooting, ultimately kept Austin-East at bay.
The Roadrunners turned the ball over 29 times and fouled 29 times.
Making its first state tournament appearance since 2019, Austin-East suffered from 17 turnovers in the first half and Mr. Basketball finalist Shane Cherry — who has battled foul trouble at times this postseason — was whistled for his first foul just 12 seconds into the game.
He knew then, with the officials calling it that tight, that the Roadrunners could be in for a long day.
“I thought that was a bad call, considering the guy was grabbing my arm the whole time I was dribbling,” Shane Cherry said. “When I make a move, he just flops back. They called it a charge. So that was disappointing that early.”
Both Cherrys and two other A-E starters finished with four fouls each.
Douglass’ length and swarming defense hounded Shane Cherry throughout. He didn’t score until the 1:33 mark of the first quarter and only managed to get up 12 shots. He entered the game averaging 27.5 points per game and was held to half that.
“We kept somebody in his face,” Douglass coach Gregory Williams said. “He wasn’t going to get an open look.”
Condis Cherry came to the rescue in the third quarter, scoring five points in a 25-second span that founded a 10-0 run for the Roadrunners. That spurt cut Douglass’ halftime lead (35-20) down to just five points.
“For him, he’s impacted our team in so many ways,” Austin-East coach Denard Bertram said of Condis. “His defensive pressure. His offensive prowess. He can go in and score amongst the trees. He can shoot the ball.
“He probably should have been starting all year. But at certain points, we needed that spark off the bench. And he took that role and embraced it. Coming down the stretch (this season), we felt like he had earned that opportunity to stay in the game. He came in and started and he played well. I felt like he proved, on our side of the state, that he’s the best freshman on our side of the state.”
Juwaan Troutman’s score in the paint wit 4:36 left in the third cut A-E’s deficit to 37-34.
And Douglass only led 47-42 with a quarter to play.
Coach Williams and Douglass players, in the postgame, struggled to come up with the last opponent to push them into a four-quarter game. The Red Devils had absolutely obliterated their competition this postseason and had to conjure up a game from months ago.
They didn’t lose their composure against A-E in crunch time. They constructed a 10-1 run across a 4:42 span to open the fourth.
Douglass shot 51 percent and only took five 3-point shots Thursday. Austin East made just five of 26 from deep.
Douglass kept its defensive intensity turned on and turned up in the final minutes, when the game was already out of reach, and made the final margin of victory bigger than what it should have been.
A-E didn’t express any anger over that in the press room — just a desire to get back and do more in 2025.
“When I took the job (in July 2022), I said, ‘We’ll be back. We’ll get there. We’re going to work with what we have. We’re going to shut down the boarders and keep our players where they belong,'” Bertram said. “Because everybody that’s winning in Knoxville, they have our players.
“My job now is to hone what we have and keep what we have in the lower levels at home. … (Today), we have nothing to hang our heads about. We came in here and gave it all we had. Today, it wasn’t our day. But I’m telling you: brighter days are ahead for our program and school. This was big for our community. They needed something good to happen — and we gave it to them.”
BOX: Douglass 72, Austin-East 49
Douglass (72): Demario Johnson 11, Taquez Butler 13, Marjavis Chandler 15, Jarmon Brittman 20, Terrance Holly 2, Blake Garner 6, Joshua Thompson 5
Austin-East (49): Condis Cherry 16, Shane Cherry 14, Demarcus Allen 5, Jaxon Young 6, Demarcus Johnson 3, Justin Pruitt 3, Juwaan Troutman 2
Douglass 23 12 12 25 — 72
Austin-E 13 7 22 7 — 49
FG percentage: Douglass 26-51 (51.0 percent); Austin-East 16-57 (28.1)
3-pointers: Douglass 1-5, Austin-East 6-26
Free Throws: Douglass 19-29, Austin-East 11-19
Rebounds: Douglass 32, Austin-East 41
Fouls: Douglass 23, Austin-East 29
Turnovers: Douglass 23, Austin-East 29