by Rusty Ellis
MURFREESBORO – The Smith County Lady Owls saw their historic season come to an end on Thursday, as they fell 54-46 to Gatlinburg-Pittman in the Class 2A State Quarterfinals.
The Lady Owls saw GP get out to an early 4-0 lead, but Smith answered with a 6-0 run of their own, punctuated by a Chloe Collins three-pointer with 5:20 to go in the first quarter. The Lady Highlanders pushed their lead as high as 19-12 at one point, but Airyn Enoch’s layup before the buzzer made it a 19-14 game heading into the second quarter.
Maddy Newman knocked down a jumper early in the second quarter to push the lead back to 23-14, but another Collins three trimmed the deficit back down to six points. GP closed the quarter on an 8-4 run however, leading to a 31-21 Lady Highlanders lead at the break.
A double-digit deficit against one of the top 2A teams in the state would have any coach worried, but SCHS head coach Matt Ferrell never thought his team would quit fighting.
“We did what this group of kids has done all year long,” Ferrell said. “When people counted them out, they gave their best efforts…I would’ve been a lot more surprised if they hadn’t done that. That’s been their M.O. all year long, when things get hard, this group of kids competes.”
Smith came out with more energy in the third, and immediately trimmed the lead down to five after baskets from Collins and Merissa Spivey, but GP answered back to run the lead back up to 13 at 42-29. Emry Jones hit a layup to end the quarter and cut the lead down to 42-31.
There, the Lady Owls used an 8-0 run at one point to get within 48-43, but they couldn’t get any closer, as Smith County saw their season come to an end in 54-46 fashion to Gatlinburg-Pittman.
For Ferrell, he says he’s proud of what the team accomplished and just how hard they fought to make it to Murfreesboro.
“They competed and played their way back in and gave themselves a chance to win,” Ferrell said. “A lot of the people sitting out there today probably didn’t think this was possible…that’s what makes it hard to see a group of kids like this leave.”
It marks the end of the high school careers of Enoch, Spivey, Julia Dickerson and Sarah Wilmore, and Enoch says that representing Carthage and Smith County High School has led to some of the best years of her life.
“It means everything, I think that’s why it hurts so bad,” Enoch said. “This is all I’ve ever known, when (Ferrell) got here, the culture completely changed. I don’t know what to do without basketball now.”
It’s not the ending Enoch, Ferrell or anyone in the Smith County program hoped for, but it did accomplish one thing: Smith County’s made it back to Glass House, and Ferrell is prepared to build on it in the 2024-25 season.
“What this group of kids did and what the group last year did will be in vain if we don’t put in the work this summer,” Ferrell said. “We’ve got a good group of kids coming back, and that group has seen (the seniors) come in and watch 20 hours of film in a week…they’ve seen what it takes to win. This group of kids has set a standard that will never go away.”
