Alcoa girls flip momentum before halftime, stifle Seymour

SEYMOUR — Seymour held a double-digit lead and all the momentum as halftime neared.

Alcoa wrested control away in a matter of 93 seconds.

The Lady Tornadoes jumped into a full-court press and forced three straight Lady Eagles turnovers amid a stretch of seven unanswered points. The run proved to be the catalyst for a 49-38 victory Monday at Seymour High School.

“There were two things we did at the same time, and one was we started moving the ball offensively,” Alcoa coach David Baumann told The Daily Times. “We were really stagnant when they were in their zone, and the ball wasn’t moving really well. We started moving the ball, and we got good looks. You can’t press if you don’t score, but we made some baskets and then we were able to speed them up and change the tempo of the game.

“It was big to close the first half like that.”

A 3-pointer from Seymour junior Jaden Cummings gave the Lady Eagles (4-4) a 24-14 lead with one minute, 33 seconds remaining in the first half, but Seymour failed to get back on defense, leading to a layup by Alcoa junior Amelia Pfeiffer.

Alcoa (4-1) sent immediate pressure and forced a turnover, one that senior Karli Haworth turned into an and-one at the rim. Another Seymour miscue eventually resulted in a sophomore Kara Pitts putback to conclude the run.

“Our biggest issue all year has been spurts of two, three, four minutes without scoring. For as good as we are defensively, to hold them to 49 points, there is too much pressure defensively to be perfect,” Seymour coach Greg Hernandez said. “We just weren’t strong with the ball (against that press). I thought we handled their pressure in the half court well, and then they extended it, and it was like we forgot how to handle it.”

The Lady Tornadoes were unable to turn the third turnover into points, but a new tone had already been set as they limited the Lady Eagles to 14 points over the final 17:33.

Haworth hit a 3 to give Alcoa a 30-27 lead with 3:32 remaining in the third quarter, and it never looked back.

The Lady Tornadoes hit nine of their final 10 free-throw attempts in the final 2:57 to ensure a smothering second-half effort led to a celebration.

“They are hard to guard because they spread you out and they can all shoot it,” Baumann said. “I thought it was just a great effort defensively, and most importantly, we finished possessions with rebounds. Sometimes in the first half we would have good defensive possessions, but they would get an offensive rebound a bucket. When we shut that down, our defense got even better.”

Haworth scored a team-high 16 points for Alcoa while Pfeiffer and senior Macie Ridge totaled 12 and 10, respectively.

Cummings tallied a game-high 17 points for Seymour.

Both state tournament hopefuls continue grueling non-district schedules at 6 p.m. Friday. Alcoa looks to extend its winning streak to five games when it hosts Greeneville while Seymour will attempt to snap its two-game skid when it travels to Heritage.

“I’ve reminded them that this schedule was done with a purpose, but I didn’t just want to compete, I wanted to win these tough games,” Hernandez said. “Right now, we’re having to work through too many things, and it’s hurting us, but it’s all fixable. We just have to become more sustainable for longer periods of time (on offense) because holding teams in the 40s should be enough.”

“We’re going to play as tough as we can, and when we make our non-district schedule, we’re looking for teams that we feel are sub-state-type teams and state tournament-type teams,” Baumann said. “That’s a team that went to sub-state last year and has most of their girls back.

“You don’t win state championships in December, but you get tougher and you get better, and that’s what we’re looking to do.”