BLOUNTVILLE-First-year Cocke County Lady Red coach Wade Wester knew coaching girls basketball was going to be a new experience.

He knew it would require a different mindset. He knew it would test him as a coach.

Faced with his first dilemma of the season, Wester passed his the test of the 2008-09 season on Friday night.

With the Lady Red locked in a one-point game at halftime, after leading by as many as 10 earlier in the half, Wester was faced with a locker room full of upset and emotional girls.

Wester pushed the right buttons and saw his team pull away from the Lady Cougars of Sullivan Central to claim a 63-50 victory in a TSSAA Hall of Champions contest. The Fighting Cocks lost their game to Sullivan Central by a 75-62 margin.

With an emotional atmosphere in the locker room, Wester settled the Lady Red down by telling them to keep things simple on the court.

"I told them they were making the game hard," Wester said. "These girls are just so intense and they go 100 miles an hour and you can't get them to slow down.

"Once we became patient, we started increasing our lead," Wester said.

The Lady Red (2-0) saw most of their 10-point first half cushion evaporate as they settled for long jump shots and committed 11 turnovers. Sullivan Central took a different approach in narrowing their deficit to a 29-28 margin at the half by scoring most of their 17 second quarter points by attacking the post.

Cocke County would mirror that approach in the game's second half by reducing their reliance on the jump shot and attacking the basket.

Inside players Jalese Pruitt and Allie Sprouse combined for 14 of Cocke County's 34 second half points. The team's leading returning scorer Shannon Depew was limited to only nine points in the game due to foul trouble.

Wester felt as if they benefited from his message of working on getting the ball to the basket.

"I said we have to look to make the game easy and get the ball inside and be patient," Wester said.

Lady Red point guard Morgan Buda was one of the players who took Wester's advice to heart after halftime.

Buda scored nine of her 13 points in the game by taking the ball to the basket. When the junior, who made her 60th consecutive start at point guard on Friday, wasn't attacking the basket she was distributing the basketball, recording half of her eight assists.

The ever-competitive junior said that keeping composure and remaining calm were two of the biggest things she took from her second half on Friday.

"We just have to keep our composure (as a team)," Buda said. "Ironically, he (Wester) calms me down and helps me (stay calm).

"We wanted to come up here and do well, we knew it was going to be tough, but want to keep doing what we're doing."

For the most part, the Lady Red did just that, by continuing to capitalize on the offensive momentum they established on Tuesday night against Sevier County. While the team struggled to reach their 63-point total, they broke the 60-point mark for the second straight game after only scoring that many points in three games last season.

Despite showing patience, the Lady Red still struggled to dispatch the Lady Cougars in the second half, holding a five-point advantage for most of the fourth quarter.

However, Wester felt as if the team held its own in what was a physical environment and feels that it will prepare them for tough games that they will encounter later in the season.

"This was a practice game to get better for Morristown West and Greeneville," Wester said. "I told them (at halftime) to pretend that's Morristown West and Greeneville out there, and asked (if they were) going to be able to handle it."

Buda agreed with her coach that the team was going to be able to use this victory to encounter situations later in the season.

"The more physical it gets, the more we will keep fighting back," Buda said. "If it's not as physical, we're just going to play finesse ball and do what we can do and come out with another win."

Cocke County (63): Jalese Pruitt 15, Morgan Buda 13, Courtney Lewis 12, Shannon Depew 9, Allie Sprouse 8, Alex Suggs 2, Nicole Ball 2, Kendra Walker 2.

Sullivan Central (50): Whitney Moody 18, Erika Blizard 10, Breann Sabo 10, Brittany Fields 8, Jacquelin Kestner 2, Emily Jones 2.

Team Stats

CCHS: 25/57 FG (43.9%), 13/24 FT (54.2%), 0/8 3-PT FG (0%), 38 RBS, 20 TO.

SCHS: 18/50 FG (36%), 10/14 FT (71.4%), 4/16 3-PT FG (25%), 22 RBS, 21 TO.

Fighting Cocks suffer offensive woes in loss

After dispatching Sevier County in the final minute on Tuesday night, Cocke County coach Ray Evans was hopeful that his team would use the victory to boost them throughout practice the remainder of the week.

Evans said those hopes were dashed after watching his team on Friday night.

Cocke County lost to the Cougars 75-62 after suffering through a dismal night shooting the basketball. Cocke County made only 22-of-66 shots from the field, with two coming from three-point range, pushing the team's total to four through two games.

The game was tied at 31 at halftime, but the Cougars (2-0) ran away from Cocke County (1-0) with a barrage of three-point shots in the third quarter, followed by easy lay-ups in the fourth.

Sullivan Central led 56-52 with 7:20 to play in the game, but those easy lay-ups allowed the Cougars to go on a 12-3 run over the next three minutes to put the game out of reach for the Fighting Cocks. Most of that three-minute stretch was played with the starting five on the bench.

Evans, in his fourth season on the Fighting Cocks bench, said that the 44 points Sullivan Central scored was mainly a failure of the team's defense. Evans felt the defense was bolstered in the first half by rotating five-men in and five-men out that he experimented with on Friday after seeing rhythms disrupted by other substitution patterns on Tuesday.

"It seemed to work a lot in the first half," Evans said. "One group played zone, the other group is man-to-man and kind of kept them (Sullivan Central) off track a bit.

"In the second half, I don't know where our defense went," Evans said. Neither of the groups played well defensively."

Neither did the offense in the second half.

Cocke County struggled to score points, posting 31 in each half, and seemed to not look cohesive on the offensive end.

"We're still struggling a lot on offense," Evans said. "We're not executing any offense.

"I'm sure it looks like we're just dribbling around and chucking and throwing up shots," Evans said. "There's no organization at all."

While Evans was quick to blame himself, he also noted that his players had to do their part as well.

"They're being stubborn and we're still not accepting coaching right now," Evans said.

"I told them at half that right now they're uncoachable. They're not doing the things we asked.

"They right now are still trying to do things their way and we've got a big problem right now," Evans said.

Evans said the team must realize that this team is not the same that won 19 of 21 games on their way to a District 2-AAA tournament championship.

"Right now, this year, everyone doesn't get the big picture," Evans said. "They still think mainly think we're the same team as we were last year and that it's just going to happen.

"Until they understand that its not, they're going to have to put forth the effort," Evans said. "They are playing hard; we're just not playing smart and taking care of the ball."

Sullivan Central (75): Tyler Devault 19, Carl Roberts 17, Patrick Albright 15, Nathan Vannoy 10, Mickey Brown 10, Garret Whittington 2, Cody Hyden 1, Taylor Winchell 1.

Cocke County (62): Travis Glenn 12, Dustin Ball 9, Luke Ottinger 8, Marcus Stewart 8, William Carmichael 6, Hunter Dockery 5, Barry Huffhines 5, Chris James 4, Jeramie Haney 2, Kurt Brooks 2, Josh Wice 1.

Team Stats

SCHS: 25/48 FG (52.1%), 20/32 FT (62.5%), 5/12 3-PT FG (41.6%), 27 RBS, 21 TO.

CCHS: 22/66 FG (33.3%), 16/19 FT (84.2%), 2/15 3-PT FG (13.3%), 31 RBS, 17 TO.

Up Next: Cocke County returns to action on Monday night, hosting District 2-AA Pigeon Forge in non-conference action. Tip-off of varsity action is slated for 6:30 p.m.