Halls girls and Central boys are looking to advance

By Steve Williams

The Halls girls and Central boys will be playing in season-ending elimination games Tuesday night in the District 3-4A basketball tournament at Central High.

Games pitting the No. 4 versus No. 5 seeds and No. 3 versus No. 6 seeds on opening night are often among the best in the tournament, because for the losers of these games, there is no tomorrow.

The Lady Red Devils and Bobcats tuned up for the elimination games by ending regular season play in their district with victories last Thursday night at Central.

Megan Biliter stood out for the Halls girls with a triple double in their 74-56 win over the Lady Bobcats. Biliter scored 19 points, collected 15 rebounds and had 10 assists.

"She's just a very well-rounded player," said Coach Savannah Harrison, who is in her sixth season as head coach at Halls.

The Lady Red Devils were "bumped up" to Class 4A this season said Harrison and her team got its first district win with the victory over rival Central.

"We have more skill than our overall record (8-18) reflects," added Harrison. "They wanted it bad tonight. We came out in the second half with a much better vibe."

Halls had five players in all to score in double digits. Blayke Holbert had 14 points, including four 3-pointers. Raegan Corvette also tallied 14 points and had eight rebounds. Bailey Roberts, who had been sidelined, bounced back with 12 points and Olivia Culp contributed 11 points.

Halls fired in eight 3-pointers in the game. Central, which made 14 of 16 free throws, got 16 points from Avery Brewer, 13 from Cadence Horner and 11 from Ryah Winton.

The Halls girls also built on the win the next night by notching a 66-53 victory over highly regarded Anderson County on Senior Night.

Coach Harrison had made plans earlier to take her team to see the Lady Vols play tonight (Feb. 12) at the Food City Center.

Horton fires Central to 50-46 win

Cam Horton's hot shooting lifted Central to a 50-46 win over Halls in the boys game. Horton finished with 18 points after connecting on five 3-pointers, including three in the final period as the Bobcats outscored the Red Devils 16-9 to take the win.

JD Harris added 13 points and made 8 of 10 free throws.

The Bobcats had a big edge at the foul line, making 16 of 22 compared to Halls' 3 of 6.

Jake Lane led Halls' balanced attack with 11 points.

First-year Central Coach Marcus Huie puts a high premium on defense. He said the key to the win was "getting meaningful stops."

Huie added: "The mentality for us is stop, score, stop ... And that's just one of the things I learned from my previous coaches. For 29 minutes, I didn't feel like we played team ball at all. We were just arguing. Things didn't go our way. But those last three minutes we found a way."

Coach Huie also pointed out after the game that Central and Halls were "locked" into a No. 4 seed versus No. 5 seed first-game rematch in the district tournament. Late in the game, he decided to let his team know that.

"I let them know we needed this win to help the guys build confidence going into Wednesday's game."