The Cloudland girls basketball cruised into the semifinals of the Region 1-A tournament.
The Lady ‘Landers rolled to a 73-30 victory over Hancock County in the quarterfinal round of the Region 1-A tournament at Sonny Smith Gymnasium on Friday night. Cloudland advances with the win to take on the top seed from District 2 Cosby with a berth in the Region 1-A Championship game as well as a sectional berth on the line. That game will tip off at 7:30p.m., Monday at Sullivan North.
It took Cloudland a few minutes to get firing on all cylinders, but they were off to the races once they got cranked up.
Trinity Vines opened the scoring with a jumper in the first minute, but neither team was able to score for two minutes until Gracie Freeman knocked down a 3-pointer. The final minute of the quarter saw a Heaven Caraway 3-pointer and another Freeman trey push CHS to a 13-3 lead after eight minutes of play.
In the second quarter, Stacia Wilson hit a quick jumper and Kenzie Birchfield hit a 3-pointer to quick push the Cloudland lead to 15 points. Mandy Benfield, Vines and Birchfield hit shots to maintain the lead, and the Lady ‘Landers ended the half on a 16-2 run to take a 39-12 advantage into the half.
The Lady Indians cut into the lead a bit to open the second half as Hancock opened the half on an 8-3 run. Jasmine Birchfield hit a pair of free throws and Megan Lunsford converted an and-one to stop the Lady Indian run. From there, the Lady ‘Landers controlled the game as CHS led 62-27 at the end of the third quarter. Cloudland capped the game with an 11-0 run during the final quarter.
Vines and Freeman had 16 points each to lead Cloudland, while J. Birchfield and K. Birchfield had nine points apiece. Wilson
finished with eight points, while Lunsford scored six points.
Breanna Seal led Hancock with eight points.
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