lady eagles wilt under a-e press

The Seymour Lady Eagles’ ride through the postseason came to a grinding halt Monday in the second round of the region tournament with a 71-41 loss to defending Class AA state champion Austin-East at Anderson County High School.

For the second straight year, the Lady Eagles’ season ends two wins away from a coveted state tournament berth. Last year a senior-laden SHS squad dropped a 58-55 region-semifinal decision to Stone Memorial. Two years ago, Seymour steamrolled through the region and sectional tournaments before falling 56-52 to Ezell-Harding in the first-round of the state tournament in Murfreesboro.

Seymour’s postseason run this winter has been somewhat surprising considering the Lady Eagles replaced six seniors from last year’s squad.

With only two 12^th-graders on the roster, Seymour’s 2007/2008 basketball season comes to a close with a bittersweet feeling surrounding the program. On one hand, the bus ride back to the foothills of the Smoky Mountains Monday night from Anderson County High School had to be sobering in the aftermath of the team’s listless performance against the revved-up Lady Roadrunners. But at the same time, the returning Seymour players have to be somewhat encouraged with the reality of how close the team actually came to making an unexpected trip back to Murfreesboro a year—or two years—sooner than most expect.

The 30-point region tournament setback to the Lady Roadrunners came just nine days after Seymour stunned Austin-East with a 50-45 upset in the semifinals of the District 3-AA Tournament at Gibbs High School. Austin-East, however, defeated Seymour in both regular-season match-ups and now appears primed to defend its state tournament championship from a year ago.

The Lady Roadrunners will face Stone Memorial—64-53 winners over Christian Academy of Knoxville in the other Region 2-AA Semifinal game—Wednesday night for the region championship at Anderson County High School.

Both Austin-East and Stone Memorial will play in this weekend’s sectional round with the winner of Wednesday night’s game hosting a sectional tilt and the loser going on the road to face the champion from the sister region. The winners of Saturday night’s sectional games receive invitations to Murfreesboro next week to compete for the Class AA State Championship.

The Lady Roadrunners are not strangers to the postseason path. A-E has made it to the state tournament in five of the last six years. They played in the state championship game three years ago and last year finished the season on a 30-game win streak, culminating with a state championship win over Marshall County.

The Lady Roadrunners seem to have a way of turning the pressure up on opposing teams as the postseason progresses.

Monday night’s region semifinal game bared no resemblance to Seymour’s district semifinal win over the Lady Roadrunners on Feb. 16. Whereas the Lady Eagles controlled the tempo of last week’s district tournament game from the outset on their way to the 50-45 upset win, the Lady Roadrunners used suffocating, full-court pressure to force 26 SHS turnovers and pull all the strings in Monday night’s region tournament tilt.

Austin-East head coach Eric Brabson said although he admires his team’s ability to dictate tempo seemingly at will, he said the Lady Roadrunners will have to be more consistent to claim another state title.

“I think (in A-E’s 50-45 district loss to Seymour of Feb 16) our girls knew they had another game to play, win or lose, and didn’t come out ready to play,” Brabson commented. “(Monday night) they knew it was all on the line and they really came out focused and played to the best of their abilities.

“We do have a tendency to play harder in big games,” Brabson continued. “That’s something we’ve worked on. I think our girls realize now that they have to compete every time they step on the court the rest of the way.”

With six seniors on the squad, this year’s version of the Lady Roadrunners is tournament-tested.

“Our girls understand what it takes to win during the tournament,” Brabson continued. “We have six seniors on this team and they know that they have to stay focused and concentrate on one game at a time, and keep the pressure turned on the whole game.

“That’s one of the things we pride ourselves on—keeping the pressure turned up for 32 minutes,” He added. “We don’t have the tallest of players but we’re very long and athletic and that can cause (opposing teams) a lot of problems when they’re going against our defense and our pressure.”

The Lady Eagles can attest to that. The Lady Roadrunners’ stifling pressure forced Seymour into six turnovers in the first six minutes of the contest Monday night, helping A-E jump out to a 13-4 advantage with 1:25 left in the first quarter. Seymour senior Kendra Brown put SHS on the board with a layup off a nice dish from freshman Shaelyn Brown at the 3:25 mark and senior Tara Heyboer nailed a 17-footer off an Ashleigh Elliott assist at the 2:30 mark for the Lady Eagles’ only buckets in the game’s first six minutes.

The Seymour offense got in a groove late in the opening stanza as Elliott kissed a trey off the glass with 50 seconds left and sophomore dynamo Casie Cowan converted a steal into a layup 10 seconds later to pull the Lady Eagles to within four points at 13-9 at the end of the first.

Elliott swished another longball early in the second and Heyboer converted an old fashioned 3-point play to thwart a small A-E run and cut the Lady Roadrunners’ lead to 20-15 with 2:50 left in the half.

The A-E pressure again reigned supreme in the final moments of the half as the Lady Roadrunners forced turnover after turnover to outscore SHS 13-5 in the half’s final two minutes to take a 33-20 halftime lead.

A-E came out of the locker room after halftime and shifted into another gear, effectively leaving the Lady Eagles in the rearview mirror. By the time Elliott knocked down a runner with 2:55 left in the third, Austin-East had already surpassed the half-century mark, outscoring the Lady Eagles 18-3 in the opening minutes of the second half to extend its lead to 51-23.

Elliott dropped in a long trey from the top-of-the-key in the final seconds of the third to cut A-E’s lead to 58-35. Brown and Elliott each cashed in on treys in the first minute of the fourth to make the Lady Roadrunners’ fourth quarter advantage 61-41 but the defending state champs sealed the deal with a 10-0 run to close out the game.

Despite his squad’s blowout win, Brabson says the Lady Eagles do indeed have much to feel good about as a program.

“First and foremost, Seymour is one of the best-coached teams in this area,” Brabson stated. “My hats off to (SHS head coach) Randy (Moore) on what a great job he does with his team every year. (Tara Heyboer) is an excellent player for Seymour. She consistently scores in double-figures and usually has close to 10 rebounds. She was a match-up problem for us every time we played them.”

The A-E coach anticipates the rivalry between the Lady Roadrunners and Lady Eagles will continue to flourish, considering the young talent on the rise within the Seymour program. Brabson is not only informed on the Lady Eagles’ roster this year, he has admittedly already envisioned what SHS will look like next year and for the next few years to come.

“I know they’re very young in the guards,” Brabson commented. “That may have hurt them this year but they played well and they are obviously very talented.

“(Seymour) was probably one player away from getting back to state this year,” Brabson continued. “I know they have a new player coming next year who will probably be a big help to them.”

Elliott, a junior, led Seymour with a game-high 17 points in the loss to A-E. Heyboer scored 14 points in her final high school game, and her classmate, Kendra Brown, added eight points. Cowan chipped in two points for the Lady Eagles.

Shy March led Austin-East with 15 points.

Seymour finishes its season with a 20-8 record. The Lady Roadrunners are now 16-12.