It wasn't so much what they finished with as what they started that was most impressive.
Jayla Hardy and Cora Hansen combined for only nine points, but they came off the bench late in the second quarter Tuesday night to spark a scoring run that put Signal Mountain in command and led to an impressive 60-40 win at Red Bank.
After Red Bank had rallied to take a two-point lead, Signal Mountain answered with a 16-3 run to close out the first half. Hardy, only a freshman, and the senior Hansen combined for eight points during that stretch, and the Lady Eagles never looked back in the battle for first place in District 6-AA.
"I thought they took over for us at a really key point in the game," Lady Eagles coach Kendra Bell said. "They got good looks and made their shots and did a nice job of rebounding and getting us going.
"We talk a lot about winning three-minute segments in each quarter, and we definitely did that in those last three minutes before the half."
The Lady Eagles (14-11, 10-0) gave up just one field goal in the first quarter and maintained control until a 14-4 Red Bank run, capped by Layla Babb's steal and layup, put the hosts ahead by two with 3:23 to go before halftime.
That's when Signal Mountain answered with nine consecutive points and held the Lady Lions without a field goal for a span of five minutes that carried over into the second half. Red Bank (20-4, 9-2) never got closer than 10 the rest of the way.
"It's the same song, different verse," Red Bank coach Bailey Lyness-McGinnis said. "We were up by double digits on them at Signal Mountain the first time we played and wound up losing. You can't take any possessions off against them, and it looked like that's what we did. It snowballed on us.
"They wanted to get us to run, and that's just not our game. We had trouble slowing it down, and maybe the pace wore on us a little bit."
Red Bank was without leading scorer Mya Kennebrew, who missed the game with an illness but is expected back soon. Without her, the Lady Lions struggled to find scoring help to complement Bailey Lee, who scored half her 20 points at the free-throw line and the other half in the paint.
Mary Witherspoon and Olivia Koontz led a balanced group of Signal Mountain scorers with 13 points each. Koontz scored 10 of her total in the second half, while Kendall Davis added 12 and Jolie McGann added 11.
"I was really proud of our effort as a team," Bell said. "I thought we brought a lot of intensity, especially on defense, and didn't allow many field goals. We were able to play the up-tempo style we like, and I'm hoping we're starting to play at our best at the right time here before the postseason starts."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.