Walker Valley girls head to state

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- When the team caravan began making its way from the school parking lot toward the interstate, Walker Valley girls' basketball coach David Tucker ordered a detour. Wanting his team, and the entire community, to soak up the excitement of the moment, Tucker led the team through Charleston and past a couple of elementary schools where well-wishers waved and cheered.

"The girls were all smiling and loving it and even at my age, I had goosebumps," Tucker said. "I told the girls I hope I never get too old to get so excited that I get goosebumps."

The Lady Mustangs (32-2) are back in the Class AAA state tournament for the first time since 2005, opening against top-ranked Morristown West (32-1) today at 5 p.m.

Also today, Class AA top-ranked McMinn Central (30-2) plays Greeneville (25-8) in a quarterfinal at 12:30. The Lady Chargers are making their 10th state tournament appearance, but are still looking for their first championship.

After finishing unbeaten in the district regular season, Walker Valley was upset by Cleveland in the District 5-AAA tournament championship. But the Lady Mustangs avenged that loss in the Region 3 title game and have won their last three games by a combined eight points.

"I keep hearing other coaches tell me that we're not that good," said Tucker, who has been the only girls' coach in the program's nine-year history, guiding the Lady Mustangs to five state sectionals. "But we're 32-2 and we're still playing so we must be doing something right.

"We've got a group of kids that believe in each other and will do whatever it takes to win. Once we get a couple of things to go our way, you can see that confidence and we're pretty tough to beat then."

Morristown West, which hasn't been to the state tournament in nine years, beat Cleveland by five in mid-January and the Lady Trojans' lone loss came in the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix, a nine-point defeat to Dallas (TX) Skyline.

The Lady Trojans are led by Miss Basketball finalist Taylor Hall, a 6-foot-1 four-year starter with more than 1,000 points in her career. This season she averages 18.4 points, 9.8 rebounds and had the school's first quadruple double earlier this year.

"They've got five seniors that can all play," Tucker said. "You can't just focus on one player. We've only got two seniors (Courtney Gobble and Alli Moreland), but they're two good ones. They set the stage for everything we do and the other girls feed off their lead.

"To be honest I'm still kind of numb from the season we've had. They just keep finding ways to win, so I'm not worried about our draw. We'll go out there and play the same way we have all year and see what happens."