MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Paige Green had never wanted to see Bradley Central lose a girls' basketball game.
Until Friday afternoon.
The former Bearettes star, whose retired jersey hangs in the high school's gym, is now Oak Ridge's head coach, and she guided the Lady Wildcats to a 38-31 victory over her alma mater in the semifinals of the Class AAA girls' state tournament at Middle Tennessee State University's Murphy Center.
"I said yesterday it truly wasn't about me," Green said after Friday's win. "The focus is on the players on the court for both teams. There's a lot of tradition at both schools. I knew it would be a battle, and it was."
Rhyne Howard, the leading scorer this season for Bradley (32-4), picked up two early fouls and sat for much of the first half. The stingy Oak Ridge defense didn't allow the sophomore guard to become a factor in the second half, either, and she finished with just six points.
"Our plan coming in was that she would probably get her points, but we had to limit what everybody else got," Green said. "But she got in foul trouble, and I know as a player that has to be frustrating."
In the first half, the Bearettes were 3-for-12 on field goals but 8-for-9 on free throws, and they led 15-3 at halftime.
In fact, Bradley led for much of the game, going ahead by six points twice in the second quarter and pushing its advantage to eight on Halle Hughes' 3-pointer with 2:18 to go in the third quarter.
But after cutting their deficit in half to begin the fourth, the Lady Wildcats (29-4) continued to reel Bradley in, taking the lead on a layup from Jada Guinn with 3:31 remaining. That was part of a run of seven straight points from Guinn, a stretch punctuated by her 3-pointer for a 30-27 lead with 2:24 to go.
The Bearettes followed by missing their next three shots, and Oak Ridge stretched the lead on the way to securing its first appearance in a state final since 1997. The Lady Wildcats face Riverdale (31-4) - an 80-58 winner over Memphis Central (35-3) in Friday's other semifinal - in the title game at 2 p.m. Eastern today.
"We didn't play as a team as much in the second half, and that hurt us," said Julia Gaither, who finished with 10 points and was one of only two seniors on the Bradley roster. "They just wanted it more than we did."
Mykia Dowdell led Oak Ridge with 15 points and nine rebounds.
The Bearettes had scored 40-plus points in all but one of their previous 35 games, but against the Lady Wildcats they made just 25.8 percent of their field goals, including four 3-pointers on 14 attempts.
"I've been over here enough to know you see a lot of low-scoring games here because people get a little tight the further you advance," Bearettes coach Jason Reuter said. "We never got in rhythm offensively, but credit their defense for a lot of that. We didn't shoot real well, and you won't win many games like that.
"Being up two even after Rhyne sat out pretty much the whole first half, I felt pretty good about where we were going into the second half. She's an all-state caliber player who's going to play in many more big games and help us win a lot of them. I wouldn't trade her for anybody else in the state. We just got beat by a team that played better than us today."
Oak Ridge and Bradley have combined to make 42 state tournament appearances. With four non-senior starters in this season's lineup, the Bearettes will be a favorite to make yet another trip next year.
"Losing in the first round my freshman year motivated us to get back over here," said Bradley junior Halle Hughes, who led her team with 12 points, "so I know this will motivate us to get back and take that last step we couldn't today."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.