NEWPOR-The 2008-09 basketball season opened with a sense of excitement on Cocke County High School on Tuesday night.

The season also opened with a pair of wins for the school over Sevier County High in a TSSAA Hall of Champions contest.

The Lady Red defeated the Lady Bears 71-56 in the debut of coach Wade Wester on the Lady Red bench. In the evening's other tilt, the Fighting Cocks used a comeback effort to defeat the Bears 61-59.

Offensive explosion puts Lady Red on top

After suffering through a stagnant offensive season a year ago, the Lady Red (1-0) broke out in fine fashion Tuesday night.

Cocke County welcomed first-year coach Wade Wester to the bench with its biggest offensive explosion in two seasons. After averaging 49.6 points per game last season, the Lady Red broke out for 71 points in their victory over the Lady Bears.

At the heart of the Cocke County offensive effort were all five starters reaching double figures and a fifty percent night shooting from the field.

The scoring attack was also balanced between the inside play and the guard play.

Post players Jalese Pruitt and Shannon Depew combined for 28 points and outside players Alex Suggs, Morgan Buda and Courtney Lewis a combined 31 points, giving Wester an evenhanded attack.

Wester attributed the balance to intangibles that most of the starting five have exhibited since reaching the high school level, where four of the five started as freshmen.

"These girls have a great sense and feel of the game," Wester said. "They are so unselfish and that's good to see because that's something I've not stressed with them."

While Wester said he was pleased at the result and beating a Sevier County team he says should win close to 20 games, he was not all pleased at the season debut for his team.

"I don't want to take this team and be satisfied," Wester said. "Sure we played with great intensity, but I saw a lot of mistakes we can improve on, which is great."

The bulk of Wester's film work of pointing out mistakes will come in the second quarter, as Cocke County blew an early 13-3 lead, only to see Sevier County come storming back to grab a 27-22 lead midway through the second period. Turnovers and miscues allowed the Lady Bears to claim their only lead of the night.

Wester said he thought the Sevier County run came after he went to his bench late in the opening quarter, which coincided with the Lady Red's first turnovers of the night.

"We got up 12-3 and they called timeout, I told the girls they made a great run and to keep the intensity up," Wester said. "When we subbed, I felt like we dropped off a little bit, but when you play a good team, that's going to happen."

Cocke County rebounded from their only deficit of the night to claim a 34-30 halftime edge and never looked back holding a 10-point lead for the majority of the remainder of the game.

Cocke County (71): Jalese Pruitt 16, Shannon Depew 12, Morgan Buda 11, Courtney Lewis 10, Alex Suggs 10, Nicole Ball 5, Allie Sprouse 5, Kendra Walker 2.

Sevier County (56): Kendal Baxter 24, Chelsey Haney 16, Carly Pippin 9, Jena Wilburn 4, Lindsey Manning 2, Madison Pickel 2.

Game Stats

CCHS: 20/40 FG (50%), 29/38 FT (76.3%), 2/5 3-PT FG (40%), 27 RBS, 19 TO.

SCHS: 19/55 FG (34.5%), 10/16 FT (62.5%), 8/29 3-PT FG (27.5%), 21 RBS, 17 TO.

Fighting Cocks notch comeback win

Cocke County coach Ray Evans had a piece of advice for his team, which faced a 16-3 hole after the first quarter of the 2008-09 season.

That advice: ignore the scoreboard.

Evans said he thought if the team could ignore the scoreboard and worry more about establishing a rhythm and getting something to click, things would take care of themselves and turn out alright.

Turns out, the fourth-year Cocke County coach couldn't have been more right.

Cocke County (1-0) overcame their early deficit to lead most of the second half and claim their first win of the new season. With the win, the program has now won 20 of their last 23 games since starting last year 3-5.

Despite holding the lead for all but seven seconds in the fourth quarter, the Fighting Cocks had to stave off several hard charges from the Bears in the waning minutes of the game.

Junior point guard Marcus Stewart was big down the stretch for the Fighting Cocks, making four big baskets in the final four minutes - each of which widened the Cocke County lead to two possessions.

Stewart's fourth quarter was part of his team-high 16 points that went along with four assists. The junior playmaker has established himself in the clutch since making several big baskets in the final two minutes of Cocke County's upset win over Greeneville in last year's District 2-AAA tournament finals.

While Stewart's performance was big, the biggest performance of the night may have come from the second group of five players that hit the floor for Cocke County.

Evans said the group, which was responsible for closing the Sevier County margin from 18-7 to 24-20 in the span of four minutes, helped spark a charge in the starting five headed into halftime.

"I think our first group saw how well they were doing and they made up their minds to come out in the third quarter and do the same," Evans said. "I think we grew as a team and started playing better together."

Playing together as a team had been the primary concern of Evans headed into the season opener and led to the poor play to begin the game.

"(We started) kind of like I figured," Evans said. "We were going through the motions and not working together and we had a couple of bad turnovers."

However, he hopes that the turnaround shown by his team can catapult them into the bulk of their season, which beings full force next week with five games.

"(Tonight) is going to go a long way for us," Evans said. "It'll help us in practice tomorrow and on through the season."

Cocke County (61): Marcus Stewart 16, Dustin Ball 10, William Carmichael 10, Jeramie Haney 7, Luke Ottinger 5, Travis Glenn 4, Barry Huffhines 4, Hunter Dockery 2, Chris James 2.

Sevier County (59): Austin Nave 23, Kent Benjamin 16, Andrew Feezel 7, Zac Carison 7, Josh Johnson 4, Dakota Cogdill 2.

Game Stats

CCHS: 22/49 FG (44.9%), 13/25 FT (52%), 2/13 3-PT FG (15.4%), 20 RBS, 16 TO.

SCHS: 19/41 FG (46.3%), 16/25 FT (64%), 5/15 3-PT FG (33.3%), 30 RBS, 23 TO.

Up Next: Cocke County returns to action on Friday night when they travel to Sullivan Central. Tip-off for the second Hall of Champions game is set for 6 p.m.

An announced schedule change is also been made for the LandAir Classic next week. Cocke County will now play on Tuesday, a change from the original bracket, against Ecole Secondare (Canada) at 4 p.m. The change comes as a result of CCHS' home game with Pigeon Forge on Monday.