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ERWIN – A scoreless drought of over six minutes in the third and fourth periods was just too much to get past for the Grainger Grizzlies as they lost to Unicoi County 59-42 in the first round of the 1-AAA boys regional Saturday night.

Drew Branson led the way for Grainger as he finished his brilliant Grizzly career with 24 points on Saturday. The Blue Devils, who advance to Tuesday’s semi-finals at Elizabethton where they will face Greeneville, were led in scoring by Grant Hensley who finished with 21 points. Eli Johnson added 17 points and Lucas Slagle had 12 for Unicoi County (25-8).

Branson started things off with a bang for the Grizzlies in the first period as he scored the first seven points, eclipsing the 1,000 point plateau. Unicoi County answered with seven of their own and went up 10-7 on a basket by Hensley. Brady Smith and Branson connected on back-to-back threes and after the Blue Devils had scored five points of their own to take the lead, Grainger capped the opening quarter with a three by Kade Williams, two free throws by Branson and then he connected on a shot from downtown to put the Grizzlies up 20-15. Branson had 14 points in the first period.

The Blue Devils went to Johnson to begin the second period and he delivered as he scored nine points for the home team. The lead went back and forth late as Brizen Solomon split the defense for an easy layup to put Grainger on top but Unicoi County countered with a Hensley shot with 20 seconds before the half to knot things up at 27-27 at the break.

The close affair between the two teams continued into the third period until the Blue Devils reeled off 10 points in a row and kept the Grizzlies scoreless for the final 4:08 of the third to go up 43-33. Branson finally stopped the bleeding at the 6:21 mark of the fourth as the scoreless streak came to an end at over six minutes. It was a complete reversal of the first two and half periods where the lead changed 12 times and the game was tied seven times.

The Blue Devils kept padding their lead and pushed it to 20 points midway through the fourth. Carter Briscoe came off the bench and scored right away and was followed by a basket from senior Ryland Burchett. Senior Logan Johnson had the defensive play of the game as he swatted away what appeared to be a sure basket by Unicoi County with less than a minute remaining in the 59-42 setback for Grainger.

Grizzlies head coach Adam Wolfenbarger said the scoring drought was something that unfortunately his team had seen before. “We have had those kinds of stretches and that kind of shoots us in the foot. We had good looks in that dry stretch too. I have to credit Unicoi County as they made that run by just hitting shots they had missed earlier in the game.”

The Grizzlies’ season comes to an end at 16-15 and Wolfenbarger said he takes pride in the way his team battled all year long. “I’m really proud of the way we played, how this team fought and scratched. I will go to war with these guys every day.” Wolfenbarger saw improvement in his team over the span of the season. “I thought we got better as the year went along. I made the statement that I didn’t think anyone would want to play us come tournament time and I think our guys were right there, we were dangerous. I’m proud of Drew scoring his 1000th point in the first two possessions of the game and that is the fourth straight year with a thousand-point scorer so that’s pretty strong.”