Hiwassee Dam – Lady Eagles girls basketball has had a chance to win all three games it has played so far this season. After a thrilling double-overtime win against Towns County to start the year, the Lady Eagles were right there in both of their next two games, but came up short against Tellico Plains, Tenn., 62-59, and Swain County, 50-45.
“We played three ball games and been in all three of them,” head coach David Payne said. “If you do little things you might gain 6-8 points, and that’s where I feel like where we are right now. We’re not just quite there yet.”
Against the Lady Bears, both teams were tied at 42 heading into the fourth quarter before Tellico Plains pulled it out late. Kiera
Taylor led Hiwassee Dam with 17 points in that contest, while Olivia McNabb added 14 and Brooklyn Hyde had 11. Against the Lady Devils on Homecoming Night, the Lady Eagles had a 29-22 third-quarter lead before Swain County rallied to take the lead, though it never led by more than five points.
The Lady Devils led 38-35 after Jayden Smiley split a pair of free throws with 6:17 to go, then Hiwassee Dam answered back with five straight to take a 40-38 lead. After a bucket by Madison Spates tied the game for the Lady Devils, Kiera Taylor hit one of two free throws to push the advantage back to one with 3:02 left.
It was the fourth time the Lady Eagles had been to the foul line in the fourth quarter, and they only hit four of their eight shots. The little things were starting to add up.
Spates answered with a three to put Swain County back in front, where they would stay the rest of the night. Hiwassee Dam had chances to change that, but couldn’t convert. Between Spates’s 3-pointer and the next Lady Devils points, the Lady Eagles missed three open layups and then Hyde missed the front end of a one-and one.
“We had several chances to tie it there late,” Payne said. “But even n the first half, we had some shots we weren’t making. We got to get easy points.”
Layups by Makayla Cody and Spates put Swain County in front 47-41, but Hiwassee Dam answered back, with buckets by Taylor and then McNabb cutting the lead to two with 20.6 seconds left. McNabb finished with 19 points to lead all scorers, while Taylor had 13.
Following the timeout, Hiwassee Dam came up with a steal, but once again missed an open layup and then had a jump ball go the other way. Marlee Hicks was fouled and hit the first of two free throws, and the Lady Eagles couldn’t come up with a good shot off the miss, turning the ball over.
With games Monday at Copper Basin, Tenn., and Tuesday at Andrews before traveling to Murphy on Friday, Hiwassee Dam is going to have to clean up things on the fly. It isn’t just late-game execution, as Payne said they’re still working out what to do on the offensive end.
Payne favors an inside-out game, and the passes and execution still aren’t as crisp as needed. Especially with a post player as strong as McNabb, they need to get her going to be successful, and that can’t happen without successful entry passes. But as the team plays together more, the hope is the execution becomes better.
“Some of them, they just have to think back through what are the decisions that each individual player made,” Payne said.
“ ‘Why should I made that pass, why should I have not?’ Just try to clean it up mentally and hopefully get better there.”