CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Cleveland High School's gymnasium is under construction. But given what happened Friday night at Cleveland Middle, where the boys' and girls' basketball teams hosted archrival Bradley Central, the Blue Raiders and Lady Raiders may not want to go back.
Cleveland's boys defeated the Bears 50-45 and the girls beat the Bearettes 49-40 in overtime in key early-season District 5-AAA high school games.
"When you win," Cleveland boys' coach Jason McCowan said, "you really like it. We had a great atmosphere."
The Blue Raiders trailed 11-6 after one quarter but led by as many as four points in the second. From a tied halftime score, a 14-6 scoring edge in the third quarter gave Cleveland (3-3, 2-0) a 37-29 lead headed to the fourth.
"We play really well in a zone (defense)," McCowan said. "We're pretty long, and we put somebody larger up top. We just play really hard, and when the ball goes up we feel like we can get the defensive rebound."
Bradley Central, or more precisely Cole Copeland, mounted a comeback and was up 43-42 after Copeland made both ends of a one-and-one with 3:26 to play -- capping a stretch in which he scored 16 consecutive of Bradley's points.
But the Blue Raiders regained the lead on Rod Dennard's turnaround one-hander in the lane at the 2:58 mark and led the rest of the way.
"We wanted to push them off the 3-point line because they shoot the ball so well," McCowan said. "A couple of their guys didn't shoot it as well as they normally do. We lost focus and Copeland rattled off several in a row and we lost momentum. He took over in the fourth quarter. But we were able to regain our focus, get some stops that we hadn't been getting and we got to the free-throw line and extended the game."
Dennard had 22 points for Cleveland and Copeland, who didn't score in the first half, finished with 18. Neither had a teammate with more than seven.
* Cleveland girls 49, Bradley Central 40: Neither team led by more than four points on the way to a 37-37 score at the end of regulation.
A field goal by the Lady Raiders' Jamiyah Person got the overtime scoring started. After Hallie Hughes, whose basket in the lane with five seconds showing sent the game to overtime, made a free throw for Bradley Central, Cleveland scored 10 consecutive points.
"We worked on something a little bit yesterday," Cleveland coach Mindy Kiser said of a defensive tweak the Lady Raiders made at Thursday's practice. "We typically don't switch, but we thought we'd try it and it happened to be very successful in the first half."
Jenna Scoggins, a four-year starter at point guard for Cleveland (5-2, 2-0), led her team in scoring with 17 points, including a key 3-pointer from right of the key with 21 seconds left in the fourth quarter that provided a two-point lead.
Hughes and Julia Gaither each scored 16 points for the Bearettes.
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him at twitter.com/KelleySmiddie.