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HIGH SCHOOL

Turnovers cost Oak Ridge against Memphis Central

Troy Provost-Heron
USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee

MURFREESBORO - For a four-minute, 46-second span, the Oak Ridge High School girls basketball team played as it has all season. Over that span, the Lady Wildcats trimmed a Memphis Central lead that swelled to as much as 20 in the fourth quarter down to seven.

The comeback effort, however, was not enough to overcome three quarters worth of poor defense and turnovers, as Oak Ridge (30-4) fell to Memphis Central 74-63 on Wednesday in the first round of the state tournament inside Middle Tennessee State’s Murphy Center.

“I wish the outcome would have been different, but we should have played like we did in the last minutes throughout the entire game,” Oak Ridge junior forward Mykia Dowdell said. “The way we played in the first half is not how we play at all. It’s not our flow of offense and we weren’t playing together — it was like we were all falling apart and going in our own direction.”

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Defensively, Oak Ridge lost track of Memphis Central’s Johne’ Stewart time and time again. The junior guard scored 31 points, 24 of which came in the first half, on 10 of 20 shooting while also hitting 11 of her 12 free throws.

On the other end, the Lady Wildcats were unable to take care of the basketball, turning it over 21 times. The Lady Warriors (29-6) converted those turnovers into 23 points.

“Their pressure, you don’t see that all year,” Oak Ridge coach Paige Redman said. “It’s hard to deal with, but you would hope to hold composure a little bit better than 21 turnovers. You’re not going to win basketball games with 21 turnovers.”

And yet, despite all of the miscues, the Lady Wildcats gave themselves a fighting chance late. Trailing 67-49 with 4:46 remaining, they reeled off a 14-1 run to make it a seven-point game with 1:49 left to play.

Following a free throw from Memphis Central’s Brianna Cooks, Oak Ridge had a few looks — a pair of threes by Desiree Bates and Jaymi Golden and a layup from Courtney Ellison — to trim the deficit even further, but could not get any to fall.

From there, the Lady Warriors sealed the game with free throws to end the Lady Wildcats’ season two games shy of where it ended a year ago — a loss to Riverdale in the state championship game.

“What they did last year and then to repeat that this year and get back to this position, people who have never done that, they don’t realize how hard it is to do,” Redman said. “This group is a special group, and they didn’t quit.

“Had we not come back in the fourth quarter, it would have been embarrassing because that is not who we are. … Unfortunately we waited too long to get started in that mode, but the fact that we got there after being down 20 says a ton about this team and it’s the reason why I’m extremely proud of them.”

Oak Ridge's Mykia Dowdell knocks the ball out of Memphis Central's Kynadi Kuykendoll hands during the quarterfinals of  the class AAA state girls basketball tournament at the Murphy Center in Murfreesboro on Wednesday.