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Lady Devil Savana Smith faces off against Murphy’s Toren Rogers at the SMC tournament on Monday.
Hannah Styles
hstyles@thesmokymountaintimes.com
Last Thursday, the first round of the Smoky Mountain Conference basketball tournament began and continued all this week hosting teams from all over the western conference at Swain High School.
In the first round for the Lady Devils girls varsity team, Swain took on the Hayesville Yellow Jackets, who they had previously won against twice this season. They added another win against the Jackets and played a great game of basketball.
The scoring stayed close in the first quarter with Swain scoring 11 points that were answered by 7 points from Hayesville. The Devils went into halftime with a 23-17 lead, and it didn’t stop there. In the third, Swain continued to outplay Hayesville but this quarter only by one point, making it a nail biter. In the final quarter Swain scored six more points than the Jackets, ending in a 47-34 win and a good way to start out the tournament.
Lady Devils vs Lady Bulldogs
On Monday night, the Lady Devils took on the number one ranked team in the region, the Murphy Bulldogs, for the semi-finals in the SMC tournament at Swain High School. This season the Lady Bulldogs are going for their third consecutive state championship.
In the first quarter, one of Murphy’s shining players, Toren Rogers, started off the scoring with the first three pointer of the night, which was answered by a three by Swain’s Mazie Helpman just a short time later.
The game remained tied at 3-3 for only a short time before Murphy took back the reins. The first quarter ended with the Bulldogs leading 18-5 and a buzzer beater by Toren Rogers brought the score to 30-9 in favor of Murphy going into the half.
In the final half, the score continued to soar for Murphy as Swain fought back, but ultimately fell by 20 points with a final score of 59-39.
Unfortunately, this was the end of the line for the Lady Devils, but the Murphy Bulldogs will advance to the final round of the SMC tournament on Friday night playing the winner of Tuesday’s game, Robbinsville or Cherokee.