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NEW TAZEWELL – Maddie Hurst scored 24 points and Adison Hayes added 18 more as the Grainger Lady Grizzlies took a 66-41 win at Claiborne Tuesday night.

“As is the case in most games, our advantage was in the post but Maddie Hurst and Makayla Scott got into foul trouble early in this game,” Grainger head coach Rusty Bishop said. “We kind of forced the basketball in there to them and they took care of business. We talked about how we need to win four basketball games against Cherokee and Claiborne to avoid the play-in game. We are 3-1 now with another big one coming up on Tuesday.”

The game was close early on before Grainger scored the final six points of the opening period to go up 14-6. The Lady Grizzlies open the second period with six straight points before the Lady Bulldogs were able to close the gap to 10 points. Grainger closed the first half with five in a row to go to the locker room up 28-12. Hayes had 14 for the Lady Grizz at the break.

The start of the third period was a disaster for Claiborne as Grainger opened on a 14-2 run to put the game out of reach. Hannah Fugate, who scored 19 points in the game to lead the Lady Dawgs, hit a pair of threes late and netted 10 points in the third frame to narrow the CHS gap to 55-31 at the end of three. Grainger extended the lead to 26 points before Claiborne’s Carlie LaPrade scored five points. Grainger was able to go to their bench down the stretch to secure the 66-41 win.

“We were a bit lethargic to start and even though we had some good looks, they just wouldn’t go in,” Bishop said. “We were able to press them and turn them over and get some easy buckets. I told our team they needed to come out and take it in the first three to four minutes of the second half and we did that tonight.”

Claiborne head coach Kris Foster said the slow start to the second half was something that the Lady Bulldogs have unfortunately experienced before this season. “It never seems to fail that no matter what we do coming out of the locker room at halftime, we have a hard time getting going. We have tried a lot of things but just haven’t found that magic formula yet.”

Fugate led Claiborne in scoring and Foster had high praise for her senior as well as a pair of freshmen. “Hannah is a leader out on the court. When things get tough, she just takes over and she leads our team. We also had a couple of freshmen who came in and played well Avalynn Cook and Carlie LaPrade. That’s our future and they came in and gave us good, solid minutes.”

Grainger returns to The Den on Friday to host Greeneville. Claiborne makes the trip to Newport on Friday to face Cocke County.