BY DANNY BLEVINS

STAR CORRESPONDENT

With the departing of Coach Matt Birchfield from Cloudland’s girls’ middle school basketball program, a huge void was left in a very successful program.

This program has seen nothing but success in the last three years as they have won a state championship in 2017 and was a runner-up in last year’s state championship game, losing in overtime to the basketball-powerhouse Harriman.

This year’s Cloudland team is returning several girls from last year’s state runner-up team and three of these returning girls showed the entire state last year that they can change the outcome of any game.

Those girls include 3-point specialist Ryan Turbyfill, Miss Everything Sahara Mckinney, and power forward Izabella Christman.

Add to this group Miss Hustle Bethany Sluder and ball handler and 3-point shooter Bella Clawson and you have a team that can beat any team on any given day.

They showed this during a recent camp when they beat both Liberty Bell and Elizabethton in the same day.

Could this team be better than last year’s team? Time will tell but these girls can only get better as they get older as long as they have good coaching.

Enter their new coach, Amy Storie Horney. Horney, or Coach Amy as her students call her, is a former player of Coach Matt Birchfield who has the same philosophy of basketball as Coach Birchfield.

She was also a player on one of Birchfield’s Tennessee State Tournament teams.

“I am very excited to take over this team, but I know I have a lot to learn,” said Horney. “My biggest problem is learning all the plays the team has been taught by Coach Birchfield in the last few years.”

Coach Horney has worked for the Carter County School System for the last five years and has coached youth league basketball during that time.

“This is the biggest challenge I have faced as a coach. We have some very good players, but I just hope I can make them better,” Horney said.

Coach Horney is married and has two children. She lives in Cranberry, North Carolina. Her heart, however, has always been at Cloudland.

“I was very excited when they asked me to take over this program,” Horney stated. “The girls will have to adjust to how I coach and I will have to learn how they play and what buttons to push to bring out their best.

“My ultimate goal is to get them back to the state finals, but we will see. I have been to state as a player under Coach Birchfield, and there is nothing like it. I want these girls to experience that feeling again.”

Coach Amy knows that she will have to ask for help from more experienced coaches, but she is willing to do what she must do to keep Cloudland’s girls winning.

“I am very lucky that I have Coach Birchfield to ask for help when I don’t know how to handle something,” Horney added. “I know he will be there for me, and that means a lot.”

Coach Amy may have her hands full with a tough schedule ahead but she is willing to do what she has to do to bring the Tennessee Middle School Championship Trophy back to Cloudland.