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NEWPORT—At halftime Monday night, host Cocke County had a 36-32 lead and had held Morristown East’s high-scoring Kyle Cloninger to only four points on four shots.

Then came the third quarter when Cloninger and his teammates poured in 32 points and grabbed a 14-point lead on their way to a 79-67 victory over the Fighting Cockes.

Cloninger, who is averaging 26.9 per game, scored 14 points in the third quarter and added eight more in the fourth as the Hurricanes evened their record at 10-10 for the season.

Mason Smith and Cory Carpenter both added a pair of three-pointers in the third quarter and finished in double figures for the Hurricanes. Smith scored a dozen and Carpenter had 11 while B. J. Hubbard flipped in 13 points and grabbed six rebounds to give Coach Alden Collins’ team four players in double figures.

Cocke County, now 11-7, also put four in double digits led by Baylor Baxter with 21. Kyler Hayes and Brazen Stewart had 14 apiece and Lakkin France 10.

East held on to its lead and went to a holding-type offense when it got into the bonus early in the fourth quarter. From there, the ‘Canes passed the ball around and shot free throws. East hit 11 of 16 at the free throw line in the fourth quarter and the home team never got closer than seven.

“It was a great response from out team after a tough loss on Friday night,” said East coach Alden Collins.

He went on to say, “I thought it was a multitude of guys especially there in the first half. I thought Billy had a great start and our shooters came in and shot it well in the first half. Kyle had a slow start but he was facilitating things for his teammates.

“Then the explosion game in the third quarter came.” Collins said. “Kyle was great in the third and I thought he kind of led us through it. We had a lot of transition buckets and that’s important in tough games like this. And I thought that kind of spurred our run.”

Collins added, “I thought we had people step up tonight and hit some big buckets for us.

“We didn’t shoot free throws well tonight…didn’t even make one in the first half. But I thought both teams played really hard and played well.

“I thought Hubbard was great the whole game. He did a good job against their big guys in there,” he said. “I also thought our littles did a good job of putting pressure on their guards and making it harder to make the entry pass to their big guys.”

Collins closed, “I thought it was just an all-around great effort from everybody on the team. This was a good win over a good basketball team on their own floor. That’s always good.”

East gets back into district play on Friday night when it travels to Jefferson County.

The Hurricanes shot a hot 64.3 percent from the floor by making 27 of 42 from the floor including 11 of 17 from behind the arc. The Big Red was 29 of 56 for 51.7 percent. The home team was 6 of 17 from three-point range.

East was 14 of 23 from the free throw line to just 3 of 4 for the home team. East had a 32-29 rebounding edge as Cloninger grabbed eight. Ethan Fine had eight for the Fighting Cockes.

Cocke County had an early 7-2 lead but East caught up at 10 and took the lead for the first time at 14-12. Zeke Ramos had two baskets late in the quarter and the home team led 20-19 at the first rest stop.

Baxter scored nine in the second stanza and the home team scored the last four points to take a four-point halftime margin.

In the third quarter, Hubbard scored first before Stewart hit a pair of free throws. Smith and Cloninger hit back-to-back triples and East led 40-38.

It was tied at 42 when Smith’s three put East in front for good. Cloninger then outscored the home team by 9-2 over the next three minutes. It was 54-48 when Carpenter sandwiched three-pointers around buckets by Blake Creech and Keagan Mink to push the lead to 64-48.

It was 64-50 after three periods and the home team got two buckets from Hayes to close within 10. East pulled back to a 13-point led but a three by Baxter got the Fighting Cockes within 69-62 with 4:40 left and the ‘Canes went to the possession game and led by as many as 15 again down the stretch.