Ronda – The Murphy girls basketball team’s first-round playoff game against East Wilkes followed an unfortunately familiar script.
After making the four-hour trek as the No. 27 seed, the Lady Bulldogs started strong and led at halftime before eventually fading in the second half to end the season with a 49-38 loss. The No. 6 Lady Cardinals (21-4) would defeat No. 22 seed Piedmont Community Charter (19-9) 63-28 in the second round before ending their season with a 68-52 loss at No. 3 seed Cherokee (26-3) in the third round.
Like most teams in the Northwest conference, East Wilkes plays at a slower pace, and Murphy (11-15 overall) used that to its advantage to jump out to a 24-15 lead. But like the Lady Bulldogs had seen in two previous games in recent weeks against Robbinsville, they didn’t have enough left in the tank to pull off the upset. The Lady Cardinals cut the lead to 30-28 by the end of the third quarter, then outscored Murphy 21-8 the rest of the way.
The loss ended a rebuilding and transitional year for Murphy, which had to pick up the pieces after graduating three senior starters from a Big Smoky Mountain Conference championship team and saw head coach Ray Gutierrez move out of the area. Gary Thompson stepped in as head coach.
It took some time to adjust, as the Lady Bulldogs lost six straight games to start the season and eight of their first nine. But once Murphy settled in, it found an identity as a team that could play with pace and not back down from a challenge.
The Lady Bulldogs will lose two seniors in Lochlan Rogers and Charlie McDaniel, with Rogers serving the role as a glue player and McDaniel carving out a role off the bench as a post player. But Murphy will return its top three scorers from this year in Lailee Holloway, Addie Johnson and Emma Laney, as well as sophomores in Julia Dockery and Cayla Geer who both started games this year.
If the Lady Bulldogs can develop some depth that they didn’t have this year, that will put them in a good place in what should be a wide-open Big Smoky Mountain Conference outside of Cherokee, which will be the heavy favorite to repeat as champions.