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C4 | Saturday, March 8, 2008| THE DAILY NEWS JOURNAL | www.dnj.com

2008 TSSAAState Girls Basketball Tournament

The first-half battle between Miss Bas-ketball finalists Chantel Poston (Milan)and Lashay Davis (Upperman). Postonscored 12 points in the half, while Davisnetted 13.

A second-quarter technical foul on Brad-ford coach Shane Paschall that led tofour Clarkrange points on the posses-sion. Bradford lost by one in overtime.

Clarkrange sophomore Kelli Reed, whoscored 15 of her 19 points in the final 10minutes of the Lady Buffaloes 65-64win, including the game-tying 3 in regu-lation and the game-winning 3 in OT.

There will be one session at Murphy Cen-ter today for the championship games the first of which, Class A, begins at 3p.m. General admission is $10. Parking is$5 in the Greenland Drive lot.

andthe lows

Star ofthe day

Paying &

Parking

The highs

Quote ofnote

Fourteen-year-oldAlexus Moore

Q: H

ave you been suppor

tingthe Mil

an girls te

am all se

a

sonlong?A: Ive been to about eightgames.

Q: Whos your f

avori

te pla

yer?A: Id have to give it to Chantel(Poston, a Purdue signee andClass AA Miss Basketball finalist.)

Q: Is thi

s your fir

st st

ate tourna-ment?A: Yes. Its been fun comingdown here and watching themplay.

Q: Whos been the mo

st fun t

ow

atch in the tour

n

ament?A: Id have to give it to Shaniqua(Gray). Shes a good athlete.

Q: Wh

atll happen in the titlegame today?A: Well win, because were goodand we can take it.

P

#

FAN OF THE DAY

TSSAA TOURNEY

FAST BREAK

I See video fea-tures from the

TSSAAGirls Bas-ketball Tourna-ment by logging on to dnj.com.

NOTEBOOK CLASS A: JACKSON COUNTY 43, WAYNE COUNTY 39

CLASS A: CLARKRANGE 65, BRADFORD 64, OT

Boys statepairingsdraw todayat 10 a.m.

Reed leads Clarkrange to OT win

Jackson Co. holds onMORE

@

I Tournament game updates athalftime and as soon as each

game ends.

I Read blogs from the DNJ

staffers at Murphy Center cover-ing this years tournament.

I See photo gal-

leries from this

years tourna-ment games.

Its just finesse. She walks on air. Milans Chantel Poston on teammate

Shaniqua Grays ability to knife through the

lane. Gray scored 21 points in a 64-44 win.

More notes @

As the girls have played, theboys have waited.

Today at 10 a.m., they find outtheir matchups.

The 24 teams who have quali-fied for the Farm Bureau Insuranceof Tennessee Boys BasketballChampionships will learn their

quarterfinal pairings when theTSSAA announces them in a blinddraw at the DoubleTree Hotel thismorning.

Siegel, in Class AAA, and Ea-gleville, in Class A, are the onlytwo Rutherford County teams ofthe 24. The first-round opponentswill be determined by numbers outof a bingo hopper at the hotel thismorning.

Live results from the drawingcan be found by logging on todnj.com.

Miss Basketball awardsAt the completion of each

championship game today, theTSSAA will announce the MissBasketball award winner in each

respective classification.The Class A finalists are Abby

Andrews (Colllinwood), KaylaChristopher (Oliver Springs) andLaken Leonard (Jackson County).

The Class AA finalists areLashay Davis (Upperman), ChantelPoston (Milan) and Crystal Riley(Hillcrest).

The Class AAA finalists areMichelle Davis (Cleveland), NicoleDickson (Greeneville) and JasmineHassell (Wilson Central).

Seven of the nine finalistsplayed in this weeks tournament.

Td upUpperman coach Dana

McWilliams received a technicalone minute into the second half onFriday in her teams Class AA lossto Milan.

McWilliams said she was giv-ing instructions to post KarissaDyer when referee Jason Browngave her the technical.

I told Karissa (Dyer) that whenthe tall referee was on her end notto try and block shots,McWilliams said. Thats all I said when hes underneath yourbasket, dont try and block a shot.

Brown also worked Upper-mans first game of the tourna-ment.

For McWilliams, it was her sec-ond technical in two years in thestate semifinals.

Her AirnessMilan senior and Class AA MissBasketball finalist Chantel Postonis headed to Purdue next season,yet shes still captivated by whatshes seeing at the high school lev-el particularly from her 5-foot-5teammate, senior Shaniqua Gray.

In the tournament, Gray has ex-hibited an innate ability to knifethrough the lane for buckets enroute to leading the team in scor-ing (22 ppg) through two games.

Said Poston: Its just finesse.She walks on air.

Battling injuriesUpperman sophomore point

guard Alyson Roberts played 31 of32 minutes Friday despite sustain-

ing a fracture in her left thumbduring Wednesdays state quarter-final against Stone Memorial. Theright-handed Roberts finished Fri-days game with 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting.

She played a good game,Williams said. She made somegood shots for us.

Doing it allWhile Laken Leonard made

more than enough of an impactscoring in Jackson Countys 43-39semifinal victory over WayneCounty Friday, a steal and assiston Holli Dailys 3-pointer whichgave the Lady Devils a 29-21 lead meant just as much to the 5-10

sophomore.Its just as fun, Leonard saidof her assist. Thats kind of ourgame to get everyone involved.We play our best when we dothat.

By JARED HASTINGSjhastings@dnj.com

It wasnt always pretty, butit was a win.

Miss Basketball finalistLaken Leonard scored 12 ofher 14 points in the thirdquarter, and Jackson Countyheld off push after push fromWayne County, downing theLady Devils 43-39 in a ClassA semifinal of the Farm Bu-reau Insurance of TennesseeGirls Basketball Champi-onships Friday afternoon.

Jackson County (32-4) ad-vances to the state tourney fi-nals for the eighth time innine trips. The Lady BlueDevils will face Clarkrange intodays championship gameat 3 p.m. Wayne County fin-ishes its season 31-5.

I thought we played welltoday, said Jackson Countycoach Jim Brown, who wasunhappy with his teams per-

formance in Wednesdaysquarterfinal victory overOliver Springs. I thoughtthat we finally played withthe maturity that we shouldhave with the team (five se-niors) we have.

Tristan Daniel led WayneCounty with 11 points and hitback-to-back 3-pointers to tiethe game at 29 with just overthree minutes left in the thirdquarter. However, down threewith eight seconds remaining,the 6-foot-2 seniors trey waswide.

Jackson Countys Court-ney Dyer grabbed the re-bound and hit one of two free

throws to seal it with 1.6 sec-onds for the Lady Devils.Dyer finished with 10 points.

We did some things we

shouldnt have, made someturnovers we shouldnthave, said Wayne Countycoach David Byrd. I thoughtmaybe we didnt get somecalls on our end that they did,but that happens.

Back-to-back 3-pointersfrom Emily Bowman andMisti Maxwell gave JacksonCounty a 6-2 lead, which theLady Devils eventually ex-tended to 14-7 at the end ofone quarter and 20-15 at half-time. However Leonard, whoentered the tournament aver-aging 16 points per game, hadjust two points on 1-of-3shooting at the intermission.

The 5-10 sophomore cameout of the locker room firingthough, scoring JacksonCountys first six points ofthe second half, and 12 of 15points in the quarter.

Coach Brown told me athalftime that I needed tomove more, said Leonard.

So we started flashing to thehigh post, and that reallyopened things up.

Wayne County trailed 29-23 midway through the third,when Daniels 3-pointersknotted the score the firsttie in the game since thehalfway point of the first peri-od. The Lady Wildcats couldnever get over the hump,however tying the scoretwice more, at 31 and 35, butnever taking the lead.

Julia Myers and RachelMelson scored eight pointseach for Wayne County. Jared Hastings, 615-278-5167

J

A

C

K

SON CO. 14 6 15 8 4

3

W

AY

N

E C

O. 7 8 16 8 3

9Jackson County Leonard 14, Dyer 10,Bowman 8, Maxwell 6, Daily 3, Anderson 2.Wayne County Daniel 11, Melson 8, My-ers 8, Daniel 4, Hammonds 4, Potete 4.

By DAVID THOMASGannett Tennessee

Kelli Reeds shot couldnthave woken up at a more op-portune time.

The Clarkrange sopho-more nailed a game-tying 3

with 52 seconds remaining inregulation then knockeddown the game-winningtriple with 37 ticks left inovertime to lift the Lady Buf-faloes to a 65-64 win overBradford Friday in the ClassA semifinals of the Farm Bu-reau Insurance of TennesseeGirls Basketball Champi-onships at Murphy Center.

The Lady Buffaloes willplay Jackson County for theClass A title at 3 p.m. today.

The additional four min-utes were necessary after arunning jump shot by Brad-fords Molly Wallsmithbounced off the rim at the

buzzer at the end of regula-tion with the game tied 56-56.In the fourth quarter, our

main objective was to keep(Clarkrange) away from the(arc), Wallsmith said. Intransition, we lost (Reed).

Reed scored 15 of her 19points in the final 10 minutesof the game, including eightin overtime.

I just felt like I had to dosomething to help my teambecause I hadnt played aswell as I needed to, saidReed, who missed her firstsix 3-point attempts beforenailing her final two. Weshoot enough in practicewhere I know I can make theshot.

We wanted this one sobad, and I just felt like I need-ed to put it on my shoulders.Im a leader.

Bradford took a 60-58lead with 2:15 to play in over-

time after two free throws byBrianna Tubbs and a steal anda layup by Jasmine Arnold,who had a team-high 20points.

Jasmine (Arnold) playsher heart out every time,Bradford coach ShanePaschall said. But(Clarkrange) is just a goodteam who stayed tough andused the experience to comeout with a victory.

Reed followed with a

three-point play inside 29seconds later to giveClarkrange a 61-60 lead.

The Lady Red Devils (27-7) countered with two Arnoldfree throws after JamieFranklin hit one free throwattempt for Clarkrange (32-6), and at the 55-secondmark, the game was tied at62.

Thats when Reed lined upand knocked down her triplefrom the left wing.

Bradford came down andcould never get a clean lookfrom behind the arc. Arnoldlaid one in at the buzzer, butthe Lady Red Devils neededthree.

Clarkrange was 5-of-18from behind the arc com-pared to 1-of-5 for Bradford.

C

LAR

K

RAN

GE 12 1

2 11 21 9 6

5B

R

ADF

O

RD 13 1

6 13 14 8 6

4Clarkrange Phillips 20, Reed 19, Green10, Lowe 8, Snow 4, Doss 2, Franklin 2.Bradford Arnold 20, Wallsmith 16,Tubbs 13, Proudfit 8, Oliver 4, Spain 3.

Gannett Tennessee photo

Clarkrange players Tori Lowe, left, and Tasha Phillips celebrate their one-point over-time win over Bradford in their Class A semifinal game Friday at Murphy Center.

Gannett Tennessee photoLaken Leanord of Jackson County is guarded byRachel Melson of Wayne County during their Class Asemifinal game Friday at Murphy Center.

Defeats Wayne County en route

to eighth title game in nine trips