MURFREESBORO – The Bradley Central girls basketball team advanced to the Class AAA state semifinals after holding off a late Dickson County rally to secure a 57-54 victory Wednesday in the Murphy Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
The Region 3-AAA champion Bearettes, who never trailed, shut out the Lady Cougars in the second quarter, using an 11-0 run to establish a 30-16 halftime advantage.
Bradley Central (32-3) will square off with Oak Ridge (28-4) in Friday’s 11 a.m. semifinal at MTSU. Dickson County finished the season 29-4.
“We had the big lead at halftime, but Dickson County certainly wasn’t going to go down without a fight,” Bradley Central coach Jason Reuter said. “We benefited from a couple of bad breaks going against them.
“I’m not going to apologize for the win, but they had to go to their bench earlier than they wanted because (Lea Lea) Carter had two fouls in the first quarter and picked up a couple more in the second half.”