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MURFREESBORO — Get all the details, stats, comments and more from Friday’s TSSAA Girls State Semifinal Round.
Given the amount of 5Star Preps teams still alive, our staff felt better to serve you the information in this format on games for :
- Gatlinburg-Pittman (2A)
- Alcoa (3A)
- Cocke County (3A)
- Sevier County (4A)
Let’s get to it…
HUNTINGDON 65,
GATLINBURG-PITTMAN 42
The magic Gatlinburg-Pittman used to win a 2A state quarterfinal this week in Murfreesboro only spilled over into the first few minutes of Friday’s semifinal.
Chloe Mejias scored 17 and Miss Basketball winner Maliyah Glasper added 14, but Huntingdon raced past G-P 65-42 at the Murphy Center.
Gatlinburg-Pittman (31-4) had its season conclude in the semifinals for the third consecutive season.
It started better Friday than its quarterfinal Wednesday, when it trailed by 16 in the second half during a comeback win.
G-P made its first three shots against Huntingdon (29-3), and then G-P later led 10-4 after Glasper hit her second 3 of the first quarter at the 5:44 mark.
“I thought in those first four minutes that we showed up to play basketball,” G-P coach Katie Moore said. “And then I felt like we missed a few shots and, for whatever reason, just started falling apart.
“We knew they (Huntingdon) were going to pressure us and try to make us uncomfortable with that 2-3 (zone). We talked about how we need to attack and attack. And I think we did it. But then we couldn’t knock down those shots, for whatever reason.”
Foul trouble (six) for the Lady Highlanders and turnovers (nine), though, helped usher Huntingdon ahead after the first quarter, 18-13.
Huntingdon’s pressure defense suffocated G-P for the duration of the first half and that built Huntingdon a 37-20 advantage.
G-P shot 28.6 percent in the first half — going 3-for-18 shooting in the second quarter — and finished with 12 turnovers and 12 fouls at the break. Huntingdon went 12 of 20 at the foul line and shot 46 percent from the floor in the first 16 minutes, scoring 12 points off G-P turnovers.
No rally this time for G-P, though. Huntingdon’s lead swelled to 46-20 in the opening 3 minutes of the third, creating a deficit too daunting to scale.
The Lady Highlanders wound up shooting 26.6 percent Friday with 28 personal fouls and 17 turnovers.
They shot six free throws compared to 37 by Huntingdon.
“I told (my players) at halftime that I can’t really say that any of the fouls there were called against us weren’t fouls,” Moore said. “Because I felt like we did foul every time they called it. I did feel like we were getting hacked a little bit. But when you’re not hitting shots and not playing within our game plan, it’s hard for me to even focus on the officials. Because we weren’t doing what we had been talking about doing the whole time.”
Huntingdon 6-foot freshman forward Wylie Kee, a Miss Basketball finalist, scored 22 points and had 15 rebounds.
Huntingdon will face York (30-6) in the 2A championship at 11 a.m. Central time on Saturday.
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