hoops season tips off with jamboree

The glorious sights, sounds and smells of high school basketball season were on full display Monday night at a prep hoops jamboree held at Seymour High School.

Ten area teams saw their first action in front of a live audience and against an opponent from another school at the fifth annual jamboree played at the SHS gymnasium. The action on the court consisted of eight different one quarter (eight minute) contests along with the ever-popular slam dunk contest and three-point shooting contest at the halfway point of the evening.

The host teams from Seymour High School were saved for the twin main events at the end of the night.

The Lady Eagles, a team thought to be in rebuilding mode after the graduation of six seniors off last year’s region semifinal team, showed little sign of struggle in a resounding 22-2 win over Berean.

Casie Cowan, a 5-foot-3 starting sophomore point guard, gave Lady Eagles’ fans a glimpse of what promises to be a breakout year for the exciting and energetic 10^th grader. She finished with a game-high nine points that included a trey to go along with a pair of conventional buckets.

Including Cowan, seven different SHS players tallied in the 20-point exhibition win. Ashley McCarter and Tiffany Miles contributed three points each, Tara Heyboer, Hayley Clark and Monica Rogers each added two points and Kendra Brown scored on a free throw.

The Seymour boys team, which is yet again also directed by East Tennessee’s hardest working high school basketball coach, Randy Moore, didn’t have it as easy as the SHS gals did.

Berean matched up well with the Eagles and gave the home team all it wanted. In the end though, it was Seymour’s shooting touch from the perimeter that made the difference in a 19-14 Eagles’ win.

Greg Korlin opened the season red-hot for the Eagles. He buried three triples to lead Seymour with nine points.

In the biggest surprise of the evening, the scrappy squad from Berean upset the Pigeon Forge Tigers, 14-11, in a back-and-forth, but entertaining, eight minutes of action.

The Tigers are embarking on their initial basketball season under the guidance of young first-year head coach Jonathan Schultz.

The Lady Tigers edged Berean 4-2 in a low scoring defensive affair.

In other jamboree action, the Sevier County Smoky Bearettes knocked off The King’s Academy Lady Lions 24-3, and the Smoky Bears triumphed over the overmatched Lions by a final score of 16-1.

The Gatlinburg-Pittman Lady Highlanders prevailed over the Lady Lions from The King’s Academy by a final score of 17-2. The Highlanders also emerged victorious over The King’s Academy in the boys game by a final score of 20-7.

All the proceeds generated at the event went to the family of former SHS assistant basketball coach Dennis Berrier, who lost his battle with cancer earlier this year.