Warriorettes advance to regional championship

The Warriorette basketball team opened up regionals as a top seeded team with high expectations. In the first round, they hosted Marshall County and took care of business winning big by a final score of 67-35. They jumped out to a quick 22-8 lead after the first quarter and never let up. The Warriorettes had five different players that scored double-digits. Senior Celeste Reed recorded a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds to go with her 3 assists and 2 steals in the game. Junior Ava Jones scored 13 points, had 7 boards, and led the Warriorettes with 5 blocked shots. Sophomore Gracie Clark led the Warriorettes with 14 points and also had 6 boards, 3 assists, and 2 steals. Sophomore Bella Winningham scored 13 and Sophomore Lakelyn Grasty scored 10.

Next up for the Warriorettes was a familiar district foe, Stone Memorial. The Warriorettes only lost two games all season and one of those was at the hands of the Lady Panthers. The winner of this game would advance to the regional championship. Everyone was expecting this one to be a tremendously competitive game that could potentially come down to the final seconds. The game lived up to the hype. Both teams came out looking sharp and exchanged buckets through the first and second quarters. The first half ended with the Warriorettes down by three with a score of 22-25. The third quarter saw the Lady Panthers gain some momentum with some big shots and they extended their lead to as many as 9 with less than 3 minutes to play in the quarter. Despite being down, the Warriorettes kept their composure and battled all the way back to end the quarter only down by one point (35-36). In the final quarter of the game, the Warriorettes got a couple of clutch shots from Celeste Reed and Gracie Clark to take a six point lead with less than seven minutes left in the game. Stone Memorial would make a run and trimmed the Warriorettes lead down to three, but never could regain the lead. The Warriorettes closed it out and won with the final being 56-48.

Celeste Reed had a monster game scoring 21 with 9 boards and 4 steals. Lakelyn Grasty also came up big scoring 18 in the game. Gracie Clark had 7 points, Ava Jones scored 5, Bella Winningham had 4 points, and Senior Piper Price scored 1. The win sends the Warriorettes to the regional championship game and clinched their first substate appearance since 2015.

The regional championship game was played Feb. 28, in Tullahoma. The Warriorettes faced the Upperman Lady Bees. However, the Warriorettes were unable to pull out a win. See complete story in the March 2, 2024, edition of The Expositor.