by Rusty Ellis
MURFREESBORO – The Upperman Lady Bees advanced to their sixth Final Four in nine years, as they took down Greeneville *SCORE* in the Class 3A Quarterfinals on Thursday night.
Taylor Dolente was the star of the show early and often, as she drilled a pair of threes to help jumpstart a 15-8 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Greeneville held an 8-5 lead at the 5:24 mark of the frame, but Upperman answered with the final 10 points of the quarter to take the seven-point lead.
While some may wonder what the message in the huddle was, Upperman head coach Dana McWilliams says she just did her best to help her team settle the nerves of playing in the State Tournament.
“Sometimes you just know as a coach, you just need a second,” McWilliams said. “It’s a big moment, sometimes you forget as a coach that it’s a big moment for these kids…we just tried to settle down a little bit, we had made a couple mistakes so we just tried to adjust on those.”
In the second, the Lady Bees limited the Green Devils to just five points in the quarter, and on the strength of back-to-back threes from Dolente and Gracie Hamilton, Upperman jumped out to a 25-11 lead with 3:34 to go in the first half. By the time the half came to a close, the Lady Bees held a 27-13 edge.
The third quarter saw UHS extend the lead further, as Dolente’s fifth three of the contest pushed the lead out to 44-22 with 1:21 to in the frame. When the buzzer sounded, it was all Lady Bees, as Upperman took a 49-28 lead into the fourth quarter.
Greeneville battled back there, as a three from Kyla Jobe at the 4:20 mark trimmed the lead all the way down to 55-45, but Dolente answered right back with her sixth three of the evening to push the lead back to 13. That was as close as GHS would get however, as Upperman closed out the win by a final score of 64-49.
Being in the Final Four is nothing new to the Lady Bees, but McWilliams is quick to remind everyone just how difficult a path they had to make it to this moment.
“It means a lot for these girls, they’ve worked really hard,” McWilliams said. “We’ve lost a lot, and people have kind of counted us out a little bit, but they’ve worked as hard as any group I’ve ever coached, to keep us at the standard we want to be at…it’s really exciting for them, they’re a talented group of kids.”
Upperman will now turn their focus to the winner of South Gibson/Chester County on Friday at 8:45 P.M., and one thing that McWilliams says she wants to clean up before then is the 16 turnovers her team accrued.
She thought most of it had to do with Greeneville’s physicality, as they pressed and turned up the heat in the fourth quarter.
“I thought we handled the ball really well, they started to press and trap and it was really physical,” McWilliams said. “We turned it over a little too much, but this team averages very few turnovers. In that kind of setting with everything going on, it’s not so bad.”
