Red Bay suffers another close loss at Wallace St.
By Staff
Scot Beard
HANCEVILLE – The Red Bay varsity girls basketball team came close to knocking off the No.-2 ranked team in the state and extending its season in the process.
Instead, the Lady Tigers were unable to tie the score to send the game to overtime when Hannah Sharp lost control of the ball as she was penetrating the lane as time expired.
Clements walked off the court with a 37-35 victory and Red Bay headed home with another disappointing loss at the Northwest Regional Tournament.
"Everybody could see we had match up problems," Red Bay coach Donnie Roberts said. "We couldn't shoot from outside without it getting blocked."
Despite Clements' obvious size advantage, Red Bay had a game plan to neutralize the Lady Colts.
Red Bay held the ball for extended periods of time and stopped Clements from driving to the basket.
"I think their defense was really good at not allowing us to get inside," said Clements' Jordan Beggs. She said the slow pace of the game threw off the Lady Colts. "Our style is usually to run the fast break."
Both teams struggled to score early in the game and Clements led 6-5 at the end of the first quarter. The Lady Colts pushed their lead to six points early in the second quarter, but Red Bay rallied to cut the deficit to one point by halftime.
The teams swapped the lead a few times coming out of halftime and the Lady Tigers prevented Clements from building a lead larger than three points in the second half.
With 1:26 reaming in the game and trailing 34-33, Red Bay's Whitney Sharp missed the front end of a one-and-one that would have tied the game or given the Lady Tigers the lead.
Clements pushed added a basket with 45 seconds to play, but Red Bay's Taylor Hester answered 12 seconds later to pull the Lady Tigers back within one point.
Summer Kirk missed the front end of a one-and-one for Clements with 18 seconds to play, but the Lady Colts grabbed the rebound and drew a foul. Daneshia Malone added a free throw to push the lead to 37-35.
Red Bay turned the ball over, but a pass by Clements sailed out of bounds with seven seconds to play, giving Red Bay a chance to tie the game.
Hannah Sharp took the inbound pass and drove up the court. As she was cutting through the lane, the ball was deflected and time expired.
"I was just trying to get points on the scoreboard," Sharp said.
Red Bay falls to 14-14 on the season.
Whitney Sharp and Hester scored 11 points each to lead Red Bay.
Also scoring for the Lady Golden Tigers were Hannah Sharp (8), Morgan McKinney (3) and Jade Ezzell (2).
