By: Lee Ramsey
lee@seymourherald.com
There is no shot clock in TSSAA high school basketball; therefore the Eagles, for one half, executed a brilliant game plan drawn up by the coaching staff to keep the game close and give them a chance against the number one tournament seed Morristown East.
At the half, the score stood 5-4 Hurricanes but the Eagles couldn’t hold on as the final score was 42-23 Morristown East.
Seymour, being the number 8 seed, was a huge underdog to the number one seeded Hurricanes.
The Eagles ate up several minutes of the clock while controlling the ball on each possession.
It worked until the Hurricanes extended their lead the second half forcing the Eagles to play faster.
The loss ended Seymour’s season with a record of 11-17 overall in the tough IMAC conference.
“They’ve won more games than any year that they’ve been here. We won 11 games this year, and we had five games in the IMAC where three we lost in overtime and two we lost on buzzer beaters,” said Second year Seymour Coach Brian Jessie. “If just two or three of those games go different, I think the mental attitude late in the season would have been better.  They didn’t lie down and they didn’t quit.  They just lost a little confidence with those close games.
“Last year, we weren’t in all those close games; so we took some baby steps.  We’re a program that is trying to build, and we are building and we are getting better.”
At the end of the 1st quarter the score stood 2-0 Hurricanes.  It sounded like a baseball score and a pitcher’s duel at that as the Eagles were shut out in a basketball game.
In the second quarter, Skylar Brown and Peyton Lee scored 2 each and th 5-4 score at the half still sounded like a baseball score.
At halftime the Hurricanes adjusted.  They knew if they pressed Seymour full court it would speed up the game which would feed right into their system.  The strategy worked.
“The second half, they’re very athletic and they just started extending and started pressing,” Jessie said. “We knew it was going to lead to that, but we were just hoping to take care of the ball a little better.  We had to execute a game plan and I thing for the most part our kids did that to their ability.”
Morristown East outscored Seymour 17-6 the third quarter and led 23-10.  That threw the Eagles’ strategy out the window and the outcome of the game was over.
Out of the few points that were scored, Skylar Brown led the Eagles with five points, Alex Lambert, Max Harrell, Logan Jenkins and John Lavine had 3 points each.  Nathan Casler, Peyton Lee and Troy Houk scored 2 apiece.
Coach Jessie and his staff are slowly, but steadily building a successful basketball program at Seymour High School. He built a successful program at Union County and he will here.  He is an outstanding person as well as basketball coach.

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