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SEYMOUR- Grainger struggled to defend the three as Seymour hit seven shots from deep to propel them to a 54-25 win Monday night.

Grainger couldn’t get anything going in the opening period as they only had one field goal in the first eight minutes of the contest. The Lady Eagles took advantage and built an 11-4 lead at the end of one. The game was closer in the second period as Grainger narrowed to lead to nine before Caiden Russell scored the final four points of the half for Seymour to give them a 26-12 advantage at the mid-game break. “We were only down nine with about a minute to go in the first half and Russell made a tough left-handed layup and then a three to end the half, “ Lady Grizzlies head coach Rusty Bishop said. “Seymour shot the ball really well and we struggled against their pressure. Even when we were down 30, we still struggled with that.”

The offense was in the deep freeze again in the third period as Marly Tanner’s three was the only points Grainger scored. After falling behind 38-15 going into the fourth, Seymour hit two more shots from behind the arc before the Grizzlies had better luck down the stretch in the 54-25 loss. “We had two keys points we wanted to work on in the second half: limit them to one shot and we did a better job on the offensive boards and we wanted to handle their press but I felt like we struggled against that,” Bishop said of the final two periods of play. “We played hard though but we just didn’t play great.”

Monday’s game was sandwiched between Friday’s loss at Greeneville and Tuesday’s upcoming district game against Cherokee. Bishop said the focus has been on the Lady Chiefs over the weekend. “A lot of tonight is my fault as we did no game prep, no planning, no film study on Seymour. We had Greeneville last Friday and have a district game against Cherokee so we just kind of showed up to play tonight and see what happens because the Cherokee game is what matters. Our walkthrough and film study today was all on Cherokee and that game is just more important.”