shs basketball teams will face carter in first round

Both Seymour High School varsity basketball teams will face the Carter Hornets Friday night at the District 3-AA Tournament to be held at Gibbs High School.

The third-seeded Lady Eagles will play the Lady Hornets at 7:30 p.m. and the sixth-seeded Eagles will square off with the Hornets in the following game at 9.

Both Seymour teams will enter the postseason in the midst of a downward spiral of sorts.

The Lady Eagles (6-3 district, 17-7 overall) have dropped four of their last seven contests, including Monday night’s 56-50 setback to county triple-A foe Sevier County in the regular season finale’ at Sevierville. The Eagles (1-8 district, 4-19 overall), with two regular starters missing from the lineup because of illness, played the athletic Bears close through much of the contest but didn’t have enough in the end, losing 65-52 in the non-district battle for county bragging rights.

Seymour’s official basketball leader, Randy Moore, the head coach of both the Eagles and Lady Eagles, says both SHS teams will look to put the struggles of the regular season in the rearview mirror and try to gather a head of steam for the tournaments.

“Our girls have just been playing average lately, “said Moore. “Over the last few games they haven’t played as well as I know they’re capable of playing. Hopefully, we’ll raise our level of play and raise our level of expectations at tournament time.”

As for the Eagles, who Moore admits have shown signs of breaking out of what has been a season-long slump, their coach believes they are just on the cusp of making something positive happen. The problem now, though, is the Eagles have been attacked by the dreaded flu bug sweeping the area, leaving the improving unit with a somewhat depleted lineup as the do-or-die tournament season beckons.

The Eagles must overcome their fourth-quarter jinx along with the recent rash of ailments that caused four of the team’s top seven players to miss practice on Tuesday.

Despite the struggles, Moore feels his squad is getting closer to breaking that before-mentioned bad luck spell.

“I think our boys were playing a lot better toward the end of (the regular season),” said Moore. “We just can’t finish at the end. We haven’t been able to put a team away in the fourth quarter. We just can’t seem to put the icing on the cake.”

Moore pointed to how the Eagles fell in the heartbreaker of all heartbreakers last Saturday night at home on Senior Night against Heritage.

The Eagles appeared to have finally gotten the monkey off their backs once and for all when they pushed out to an 11-point lead with just 1:13 left in the game.

The rest will never be forgotten to those in attendance as Heritage miraculously climbed back into it and managed to hit the go-ahead bucket with 3 seconds left to incredibly escape with a one-point win.