It won't count in the district standings, but it definitely matters to both sides as far as the emotion of the rivalry.
Both the Red Bank and Signal Mountain girls' basketball teams were impressive in their first-round games at the annual Times Free Press Best of Preps tournament Thursday, setting up a championship semifinal matchup at 7 p.m. Friday at Chattanooga State.
When the teams met in early December, Signal Mountain scored the game's final 12 points to earn a six-point win.
Photo Gallery
Best of Preps girls' basketball: Signal Mountain, GPS, Red Bank, Silverdale Baptist Academy
"We're looking forward to it, and I'm sure both teams are," Red Bank coach Bailey McGinnis said. "There should be a big crowd and a lot of excitement around that one."
After a back-and-forth first half, Red Bank used a dominant third quarter to take control and pull away for a 66-46 win over Silverdale Baptist Academy. Signal Mountain was impressive from start to finish while rolling to a 64-22 win over GPS.
Red Bank's Lady Lions (12-3) opened the second half with a 20-11 run, then held Silverdale (10-4) to four points in the fourth quarter to put the game away. After scoring 10 points in the first half, Red Bank's Savannah Washington had nine in the third quarter and finished with 22. Raijeria Bell added 14 points, and Arteya Scott had 13 for the Lady Lions.
"Our goal is to run, but sometimes our girls struggle with knowing when we don't have to, and it just seemed like we were rushing things too much in the first half," McGinnis said. "We started out flat, but I told them at halftime to just erase the first half and make smarter decisions, and that's what we did."
Marlee Montgomery's 19 points points led Silverdale.
* Signal Mountain 64, GPS 22
Lady Eagles coach Kendra Bell said one of her team's goals this season is to have better starts to games. Mission accomplished in their first-round matchup with GPS. Signal Mountain (11-3), which was the Best of Preps tournament runner-up last season, jumped out to a 15-2 lead midway through the first quarter and didn't let up.
"We've talked about needing to have quicker starts, because that was one of our issues last year," Bell said. "So far we've done a better job of putting our foot on the gas and going right from the start."
Olivia Koontz and Lamiah Walker combined for 22 first-half points to help spark the Lady Eagles' early momentum against GPS (0-7), which will take on Silverdale at 1 p.m. Friday. Koontz finished with a game-high 18 points, and Walker added 16 with six assists and six steals.
"It was good to see those two get going, because that's just hard work paying off for them," Bell said. "We had eight days since our last game, so I wasn't sure what to expect. We're a little out of shape since the layoff, but overall I thought we played pretty well."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.