GRAY DEYOSports Writer

The Wildcats faithful were having a party in the Murphy Center in Murfreesboro TN, as they watched the Tullahoma basketball team move on to the state semifinals with a 68-48 win over Jackson South Side High School.

The nerves for both teams in this matchup were visible early. Each team was doing things they don’t normally do, and in the first two minutes so did star player for Tullahoma Xavier Farrell. He missed a couple shots around the basket and shot a mid-range shot that ended up being off by a wide margin. It was a little bit of an eye-opener, that the change of stage might have an impact on how players perform, including Farrell.

That logic however proved to be short-lived.

The senior scorer for Tullahoma finished as the game’s leading scorer with 33 points and his game counteracted what the opposing Hawks were trying to accomplish. The Hawks’ plan was to suffocate Tullahoma defensively. They pressed all 32 minutes of the contest and were playing man-to-man, toe-to-toe defense no matter where the ball was on the court. If Lukas Price was orchestrating the offense at the top of the key on left and Farrell stood on the opposite side and was burrowed away in the right corner, a Hawk defender still had their hand up in the Wildcat senior’s face, as they tried to make all Wildcats players work for every inch on the floor. This play proved effective in many cases and allowed Jackson South Side to stay locked in a close game with Tullahoma at the start of the third quarter with the Wildcats leading 28-25.

However, the one thing that has been a repeatable characteristic of this Wildcat team is their dynamic. They can play in a multitude of ways, and once they figured out the Hawk’s defense, the team that traveled from Jackson was in trouble.

Farrell can score on the ball, but off of it is where he might be the most dangerous. The cuts that he makes are so sharp that they leave opponents frozen with how fast he changes his direction. With the Hawks defenders playing close and high, he and his teammates began to put more emphasis on cutting in the third quarter which began to open up ways to score that were not there in the first half.  This play along with some gritty defense from the Wildcats resulted in them sneaking out to a seven-point lead at the end of the third quarter. The slight lead led to the Hawks taking more chances on the offensive side, which Tullahoma took advantage of.

Lukas Price stole the ball in Jack South’s opening possession of the fourth period and threw ahead a pass to Farrell who raced to the goal and threw in one of his first of many buckets in the period. He hit a three, contested layups, a fallback mid-range, you name it. Tullahoma’s all-time leading scorer could not miss.  The Wildcats proceeded to outscore the Hawks 19-6 in the quarter, with Farrell leading the Wildcat’s runaway train with 11 points in the period. Farrell with his three misses in the opening period went on to only miss three more times after that, finishing the game 15-21 shooting. 

Khani Johnson and Jayden Thompson also had major impacts on the game for Tullahoma.

Johnson finished as the team’s second-leading scorer with 16 points, and was efficient with his shots, finishing 6-9 from the field. His ability to create shots in the times that the Hawk’s offense shut down their half-court sets came up huge, as he was able to create points for Tullahoma on possessions they had no business scoring on.

Thompson only had four points on the night but the energy he brought to the game was unmatched. The junior for Tullahoma plays with so much intensity that it is contagious. It goes to the players on the court, then to the players on the bench, and then it even goes to the fans in the stands. It is impossible to not root for #15 of the Wildcats, simply because of how much heart he plays with. He is the battery pack of the team and his energy was needed when Tullahoma’s big man Austin Tinnon got into foul trouble.

Despite needing Tinnon for his size against an extremely athletic team, Thompson held his own while the big man was on the bench. He was battling defensively and grabbing boards despite having the height disadvantage around the basket.

This team is as special of a squad as the Tullahoma basketball program has ever had. The players have worked their whole lives for this moment, and it is cool to see that all of that hard work is now paying off.

The Wildcats’ next matchup will be this Friday at 5:30 p.m. against Fayette-Ware High School who won their matchup against Knoxville Fulton High School 57-49.  If the Wildcats were to win that matchup they would advance to the state championship to take on the winner of Upperman and Greeneville High School.