Murphy Lady Dogs win fourth straight SMC Championship, JV Andrews Boys down Cherokee in Championship
Smoky Mountain Conference JV Boys Tournament:
The Andrews JV Wildcat boys pulled out a tight 39-33 win over the Cherokee JV boys to win the Smoky Mountain Conference JV Boys Championship.
Donovan Bateman led the way for the JV Cats with 16 points on the night, while Drew Martin tallied nine points in the win.
Smoky Mountain Conference Girls Tournament:
The Murphy Lady Bulldogs stayed calm and collected down the stretch and held off a late run by the Cherokee Lady Braves, winning their fourth-consecutive Smoky Mountain Conference Championship by a score of 59-56.
The Lady Braves took their first lead of the game with 29.6 seconds remaining, hitting an inside layup to take a 56-55 advantage over Murphy.
The Lady Dogs drew up a play to get guard Kaiya Pickens, who was hot from deep the entire game, an open shot, but Cherokee's defense was too aggressive and barrelled through a screen by forward Torin Rogers, sending Rogers to the line.
Rogers knocked down both free throws, then came up with a huge block on the defensive resulted in Cherokee sending the Lady Dogs back to the line leading 57-56.
Murphy missed both free throws and a putback attempt, giving Cherokee a chance to take the lead, but guard Mia Wilson soared through the paint for huge denial that ended up going off of the Lady Braves and giving Murphy possession with 2.8 seconds to go.
Cherokee fouled forward Sarah Pullium on the inbound and the junior knocked down the free throws to give the Lady Dogs a three-point lead with 1.6 seconds remaining.
Pullium then broke up the inbound pass attempt by Cherokee and the buzzer erupted.
Pullium led the way for the Lady Dogs with 19 points in the championship, while Pickens knocked down four 3-pointers and tallied 16 points on the night.
Rogers finished with 14 points, six rebounds and three blocks for Murphy.
Little Smoky Mountain Conference JV Boys Tournament:
The Hiwassee Dam JV Boys fell to the Highlands JV boys by a score of 49-28 on Wednesday night.
Little Smoky Mountain Conference Boys Tournament:
A slow started plagued the Hiwassee Dam boys basketball team in the championship game of the Little Smoky Mountain Championship, with the Eagles falling to the hosting Highlands Highlanders by a score of 51-32 on Wednesday night.
Highlands took a 12-6 lead in the first quarter, then extended their lead to 31-15 heading into the half time break.
Hiwassee Dam attempted to rally coming out of the break, winning the third quarter, but could not complete the comeback attempt.
NCHSAA Playoff Seeding Postponed
The NCHSAA announced Wednesday afternoon that the seeding date for the 2020 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Playoffs to has been postponed to Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020. This decision was made in an effort to "allow systems and conferences that become impacted by the weather to complete tie-breaker or conference tournament games as necessary and able."
The NCHSAA added that finalized brackets for the championship expected to be released on the NCHSAA's website sometime on Sunday evening.