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GREENEVILLE – A slow start on the road against a good team was not a winning formula for the Grainger Lady Grizzlies when they took on Greeneville.

The Lady Greene Devils built a 22-8 lead at the end of the first period and even though Grainger was able to eventually narrow the gap, it wasn’t enough as they dropped a 61-39 decision on Friday. Adison Hayes led Grainger with 11 points, Maddie Hurst added eight. Greeneville was paced by 18 points by Lindy Carter and 17 from Lauren Bailey.

“Their physicality just bothered us all night,” Grainger head coach Rusty Bishop said. “We probably got the game we needed with how they shot from the perimeter to kind of keep them in check but they had three or four girls who just absolutely killed us in the paint getting offensive rebounds, drawing contact and getting to the line. If you gave them more than one opportunity to score with the basketball, mostly they did.”

Carter scored 11 points in a row for Greeneville to put the home team up 11-3. Things didn’t get much better for the Lady Grizz as they fell behind 22-8 going to the second period. Grainger was able to get some shots to fall as Alyvia Sneed hit a three midway through the second but Greeneville still held a comfortable 36-17 lead at halftime. The Lady Grizzlies had a better start to the second half as they used a 13-5 run to climb back into the contest. That was as close as they could get, however, as Greeneville went hard to the hoop and drew multiple fouls as they closed out the third frame with 10 straight free throws, hitting nine. Both teams exchanged baskets in the fourth period as Greeneville went on to prevail 61-39.

“A lot of the problems we had in scoring tonight had to do with Greeneville’s ball pressure, their up in your face defense and physicality and our guards didn’t do a very good job of handling that. We actually had some good looks in the first quarter but just couldn’t get a shot to go in. We could have rolled over being down that much going into the second quarter but I felt like we battled all night so I was proud of our effort. I know it’s not glaringly obvious but we are slowly getting better and I made our players a promise and I will make everyone else a promise, no one will want to play us in the tournament.”

Grainger has a busy week coming up as they travel to Seymour on Monday, host Cherokee on Tuesday and remain at home for a game against South Greene on Friday.