Tennessee: McCann gets best of friend

Before last summer, Lookout Valley’s April McCann and Tennessee Temple’s Candace Dyer knew each other only as opponents.

After both finished their junior seasons near the top of the city’s scoring list, McCann and Dyer joined forces on the Tennessee Xtreme AAU team, but they were back on opposite sides of the scorers table Tuesday evening at Lookout Valley.

McCann’s Lady Yellow Jackets earned a 52-41 victory as each player accounted for more than half of her team’s scoring. McCann totaled 33 points and Dyer scored 21 for the Lady Crusaders.

“I knew some of her moves, and I’m sure she probably knew some of mine,” McCann said. “It was fun, but it started to feel like we were playing street ball out there or something.”

The matchup between the two offensive threats also created headaches for the teams’ coaches, who had to focus as much on getting the ball to their go-to player as keeping it away from the other team’s top scorer.

“We tried a little bit of everything,” Temple coach Mark Alexander said. “The thing about (McCann) is she can go inside and out, and she handles the ball so well, which makes her really tough to defend. She’s so versatile.”

Likewise, the Lady Yellow Jackets spent practice time working on ways to stop Dyer, who was recognized Monday night at Tennessee Temple for passing the 1,000-point mark for her career.

“Candace is such a threat because she can shoot the 3, and she can shoot it from pretty far out, but she’s also such a good perimeter player,” Lookout Valley coach Kristen Clounch said. “She’s tough to guard. You really can’t guard her with one person.”

Dyer scored seven points in the first quarter of Tuesday’s game, which ended with the score tied at 14, but Lookout Valley’s 11-0 second quarter proved to be the difference.

McCann went into halftime with 13 points and scored nine of the Lady Yellow Jackets’ 10 in the final period, when they held on after two free throws from Dyer made it a nine-point game with 2:30 remaining.

“I think my shots were falling,” McCann said. “I always try to just stay positive and come out and play good so I can help make my team better.”

An all-state selection last season after leading the area with 24.2 points per game, McCann added 12 rebounds, six steals and four assists for Lookout Valley (3-3). Injury-plagued Temple (2-2) got 10 points from P.J. Sexton.

And while Dyer hopes to see the Lady Crusaders get healthy and make improvements throughout the rest of the season, Tuesday night’s game will remain a memorable one for her because of the matchup with McCann.

“It was really cool getting to play with her this summer, and being teammates after going against each other for so long,” Dyer said. “This was definitely a game I was looking forward to. We wanted to take it to each other. It made the game more intense and more meaningful.”