ATHENS, Tenn. — For at least 12 of the 32 minutes played in its girls’ game against Ooltewah in the first round of the District 5-AAA basketball tournament Thursday, Bradley Central was a team on a mission.
The other 20 minutes weren’t so bad, either.
The Bearettes used a 21-1 third quarter to stretch a single-digit halftime lead over the Lady Owls and advanced to Saturday’s semifinal against Cleveland with a 62-32 victory at McMinn County.
“We told the girls at halftime that they had to do a better job of executing,” Bearettes coach Bryan Glasner said. “We were playing a lot of people, and I think that we wore them down.”
Twelve of the 13 Bearettes who played scored, led by Keila Formont with 10 points as Glasner substituted freely during the game.
Bradley jumped to an 11-2 lead four minutes into the contest, but Ooltewah battled valiantly the rest of the quarter, then cut the difference to 19-15 on two Kianna Delaney free throws with 55.3 seconds to go in the second period.
The Bearettes ran off five points unanswered to end the half, then used that momentum to hold Ooltewah scoreless in the third quarter until a Jasmine Hines free throw with 14.5 seconds to go.
“We were missing easy shots,” Glasner said of the second quarter. “We finally hit that little spurt to end the half, then did a better job of executing our offense when they went man. We weren’t patient enough when they were in the 3-2 zone.”
Delaney finished with a game-high 15 points for the Lady Owls, who scrapped until the final buzzer.
“We had been doing that,” Ooltewah coach Donnie Mullins said. “We fight hard and play hard, but mentally we’re so young that we don’t know what to do and when to do it.
“We have a long offseason. We’re going to do a lot of work in that time.”