Tellico Plains Lady Bears Turn the Tables on Wartburg
By Terry Futrell – November 16, 2018
In an intense rematch of the Region 2A Championship game played on February 28, the Tellico Plains Lady Bears turned the tables on the Wartburg Central High School Lady Bulldogs and walked away with a 46-40 victory Thursday evening. The Lady Bears avenged their heart-breaking 51-49 loss to the Lady Bulldogs on their home court in their previous Regional tournament meeting.
Led by point guard Samantha Russell, who topped all scorers with 17 points, the Lady Bears faced up to Wartburg’s pressure defense, using their height and jumping ability to full advantage. The Lady Bears used cross-court passing over the shorter Lady Bulldogs to overcome Wartburg’s defensive pressure and applied their own full-court pressure to keep the Lady Bulldogs from getting into a scoring rhythm in the game. The Lady Bulldogs were led by Callie Johnson with 14 points and Erica Jones with 10 points.
The Lady Bulldogs took an early 13-11 lead at the end of the 1st quarter, but fell behind 30-26 at the half. Clawing back, the Lady Bulldogs outscored the Lady Bears by three and trailed by only one point at the end of the 3rd quarter, 37-36. The Lady Bulldog comeback fizzled in the 4th quarter as they were outscored 9-4 by the Lady Bears, sealing the Lady Bear victory with a final score of 46-40.
The Lady Bears are perhaps the fastest and most agile team the Lady Bulldogs will face all season. Their defensive pressure frustrated the Lady Bulldogs, who experienced a significant number of turnovers in the game. Even though they suffered the loss, the Lady Bulldogs proved that they could play with the taller, faster ladies from Tellico Plains, but the Wartburg coaches have some fine tuning to do as they prepare for district play.
The Lady Bulldogs next face Scott County at home on Tuesday, November 20.