ERWIN—The Elizabethton Lady Cyclones were hoping to build momentum toward the district tournament when they paid a visit to Unicoi County on Friday evening to square off against the Three Rivers Conference second-place Lady Blue Devils.
Things were playing into the Lady Cyclones favor until they stumped their toe about midway through the fourth quarter allowing the Lady Blue Devils to build a lead that Elizabethton couldn’t overcome in a 47-41 defeat.
“Unicoi County is a hard place to play,” said Elizabethton head coach Lucas Andrews. “We packed it in and ran a 2-3, and we didn’t press as much tonight.
“We just made some crucial mistakes midway through the fourth quarter, and once they get the lead, it’s hard to come back.”
The opening half was more of a defensive battle as neither team managed to get on track offensively with the Lady Blue Devils pushing out to an early 8-7 advantage after one period of play.
Kaitlyn Bailey led the way in the early going with four points for Unicoi Co. while Abbey Townsend, Kelsie Winters, and Cam Koroma each scored two points apiece to lead Elizabethton.
The Lady Cyclones finally got the offensive juices going in the second quarter to build a 20-17 lead at the intermission.
Freshman Morgan Headrick led the way with five points in the period to finish with six for the first half.
Headrick had plenty of help as Kaylen Shell dumped in four points in the period while Torrie Roberts buried a deep trey in building the three-point halftime advantage.
Each team came out from the locker room trying to establish momentum heading into the final period of play but found themselves butting heads as they were deadlocked at 30-all at the end of the third quarter.
Shell had a huge quarter leading the Lady Cyclones with eight points hitting two field goals and going 4-of-4 from the charity stripe.
Chloe Powers kept the Lady Devils in the game as she matched Shell’s point output with eight as well connecting on two treys along the way.
With the outcome very much up in the air, the Lady Blue Devils came out of the gate quickly to start the fourth quarter of play to build a seven-point lead with 4:50 left to play in the contest forcing Andrews to call a timeout to settle the Lady Cyclones.
A Destiny Little trey out of the timeout whittled the lead
down to four, 39-35, but a Halie Padgett field goal stemmed the tide and pushed the lead back to six points with 1:54 remaining in the contest.
Townsend converted an old fashion, three-point play with 59 seconds left to play to narrow the lead to three at 41-38.
However, the Lady Blue Devils managed to make the most of their opportunities at the foul line to seal the win down the stretch.
Headrick and Shell paced the Lady Cyclones effort with 11 points apiece. Little and Townsend chipped in with six points each.
Powers led the way for the Lady Blue Devils with 14 points.
The Lady Cyclones will be wrapping up their regular season next week with a game at Science Hill on Tuesday and then Senior Night on Friday at home against Central to close out the regular- season slate.
Andrews feels his team will be ready come district tournament time.
“I am feeling pretty confident because we are making the right strides and tightening things up,” said Andrews. “At tournament time, you just never know what’s going to happen.”