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Morristown East’s girls built a big lead before watching most of it disappear in a Jefferson County rally but hit some key free throws down the stretch for a 60-53 victory Friday night at Isenburg-Siler Gym.

The win gave Coach Justin Combs’ team second place in District Two 4-A and evened their record at 12-12 for the season. The Lady Hurricanes will battle cross-town rival West in the opening round of the district tournament.

East used a balanced scoring attack that had four players in double figures and another with nine points for the victory.

Hailey Hall, Ella Wampler and Finley Surber all scored 13 points for the Lady Hurricanes with Hannah Hall adding 11 and Hudson Cloninger nine.

Jefferson County’s Madi Hawk took game scoring honors with 21. Makenzie Alvey added 11 before fouling out and Brooke Satterfield tossed in 10.

The Lady Patriots, now 13-10, will face regular season champion Sevier County in the first round of the district.

East gunned in 18 of 31 from the floor for 58.1 percent and cashed in 4 of 9 three-point attempts. The visitors connected on just 17 of 63 for 26.9 percent and hit 6 of 23 from behind the arc.

Surber and Hannah Hall grabbed a dozen rebounds apiece and Wampler raked down eight as East controlled the boards, 46-26. Alvey grabbed seven stray shots for the Lady Patriots.

East led 47-30 late in the third quarter before the visitors started to chip away at the lead. Hawk’s old-fashioned three-point play closed the third quarter and Maddie Richardson hit a free throw to start the fourth frame.

Cloninger hit a free throw for East but Satterfield and Alvey gunned in three-pointers for the Lady Patriots. Caroline Loveday’s basket cut the deficit to 49-42 with 6:32 left in the game before Hawk nailed another three with 6:11 left.

Hailey Hall hit two free throws for the Lady ‘Canes with 5:54 on the clock but Hawk made two more free throws and Alvey scored again to cut it down to two at 51-49.

Surber scored with 4:02 to go and then Hailey Hall hit the second of two free tosses to make it 54-49 with 2:33 left. But Hawk hit three of four free throws and it was a two-point game with 1:26 on the clock. The Lady Patriots had two opportunities to tie the score after getting steals but missed layups both times.

Cloninger hit a free throw with 1:16 showing and Hannah Hall added another at the 1:04 mark. Hawk hit a free throw to make it 56-53 but Cloninger and Hailey Hall cashed in two charity tosses each in the final 30 seconds to close out the victory.

Combs talked about his team getting second in the district. “It’s a good accomplishment for the girls. Obviously, you want to be first but this is a step in the right direction of getting our program where we want it to be.

“We’ve got three games left to try and be ready for the tournament and be the best version of us we can be.”

The coach said, “We had a pretty good lead but we had way too many turnovers in the fourth quarter. I thought we got away from what had made us successful earlier in the game. We turned it over a couple of times and got tight and they started cutting into the lead and that kind of snowballed.

“I thought we stopped being aggressive in attacking but give Jefferson County a ton of credit. They played hard and never quit. They fought until the end.”

Combs talked about East’s scoring. “We feel if we can get that kind of balanced scoring we’re going to have a lot of success.”

Jefferson coach Bo Lewis said, “They made shots at the end of the first and second quarters for five points that really killed us.

“Rebounding has hurt us all season,” he said. “We have to find a way to keep teams from getting second chances. We have to box out better on the boards. We can’t give teams second and third opportunities to score.”

Lewis added, “But I was proud of our effort in the second half. We didn’t quit and came back to make a game of it. Our defense forced some turnovers but we missed a couple of opportunities at the end where we missed layups. You can’t do that in a scenario like this playing against a good team.”

Wampler’s bucket at the buzzer gave East an 11-11 tie after the first quarter.

Four different Lady ‘Canes scored as they opened the second quarter with a 9-0 run. A three-point play by Wampler and baskets by Hannah Hall and Surber gave East a 27-15 advantage with 2:46 left in the half.

Hannah Hall’s three-pointer that rattled around the rim and fell in as the horn sounded put East up by 33-20 at halftime.

The Lady ‘Canes stretched it out to 37-20 before Jefferson scored seven straight points. Two free throws by Wampler gave East the 17-point lead with 1:05 left in the third before the visitors started the rally.