B

If you take out the third quarter of Monday night’s game against Greeneville, the Jefferson County Lady Patriots would have felt pretty good walking off the court.

Unfortunately for the Lady Patriots, basketball is a four-quarter game.

Trailing by seven going into the third quarter, Jefferson County was outscored 22-8 as the Lady Greene Devils went on for a 56-44 victory.

“It’s just been that third quarter mindset for us where we get a stop or have a chance to get a stop but then turn the ball right back over and give them an easy bucket,” Jeff County coach Bo Lewis said. “I felt like that happened again tonight. That just kills any kind of momentum on the floor. You just can’t afford to turn the ball over against the good teams we are playing. They’re going to take advantage.”

The run for Greeneville in the third quarter started right from the beginning as the Lady Greene Devils scored the first seven points. Jeff County got back in the flow of things with two 3-pointers by Makenzie Alvey and Reagan Cotter, but scored 11 of the final 13 points in the quarter and led 41-20.

While the game was pretty much decided at that point, Jeff County came out in the fourth and stayed competitive, scoring 24 points in the final eight minutes. That was four more points than they had scored in the first three quarters combined.

“I feel like that’s something we’ve done a few times, as well,” Lewis said. “It’s almost like we’ve flipped the switch too late. You’ve already dug yourself a hole that is too far to get out of. We have to string four quarters together like we have recently in our fourth quarters. We have to play smarter and a little bit harder.”

Madi Hawk was the leading scorer for the Lady Patriots in the game with 13 points while Brooke Satterfield knocked down three 3-pointers to finish with nine points.

Other scorers in the game for Jefferson County were Alvey with six, Kamry Bolin with six, Caroline Loveday with five and Cotter with three.

While not starting in the game, Loveday was a player that Lewis pointed out that played four quarters the way he wants his entire team to play.

“Caroline is one of those that’s not going to light up the scoring column, but she does so many good things that you’re not going to see in the paper,” Lewis said. “She’s one of those players that just gives us a spark. I thought she really played her butt off tonight. We just have to be more consistent with the rest of our team. You can’t just have one or two that play well.”

Greeneville was led by Chloe Marsh with 16 points while Lauren Bailey had 12 and Anna Shaw had 10.

Things started off well for Greeneville in the first quarter as they went up 5-0 before Hawk put in Jeff County’s first two points on two free throws. However, the Lady Greene Devils kept things rolling and led 11-4 after one.

In the second, Jeff County showed fight to start as they scored the first seven points to tie the game up at 11. Those points came from a Satterfield three, a free throw by Hawk and a Bolin 3-pointer. But once again, Greeneville answered with eight of the final nine points to lead by seven at the half.

The third quarter was where Greeneville pulled away as they went on multiple runs to make it a 21-point game heading to the fourth. In the final eight minutes, Hawk scored 10 points while Satterfield knocked down two more treys. However, the deficit was too much to overcome.

For Lewis, he wants to see his team learn from these games and grow as they have plenty more tough games to come in the next couple of weeks.

“When you play in our district and then play the Greeneville’s and Cocke County’s that are playing good basketball right now, you just have to play your best basketball,” Lewis said. “If you know you’re playing your best basketball even if you don’t come out on top, at least you can leave feeling like you can build off it. But I don’t feel that way the past two games. I feel like the Sevier County game and tonight, we have played some of our worst basketball. And yet, when you look back at it, they’ve just been a couple possession games.

“We just have to clean some things up. We’re still ok. We just have to work and continue to try and get better and learn from these losses.”

Jeff County closes out the first round of district play on Friday as they host Morristown East. Tip is set for 6 p.m.