By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–After a regular season littered with adversity and bad luck, something good finally happened to the Union City girls’ basketball team in the first round of the district tournament.
Making a handful of hustle plays along with a couple of timely shots in the waning moments, the Lady Tornadoes advanced to the 13A semifinals and earned themselves at least three more games with a 27-24 victory at Bradford Monday night.
Sophie Theobald had a huge steal, made two clinching free throws and came up with a game-ending turnover – all in the final three seconds ‑- while Jada Williams and Kendall Davis each sank pressure-packed shots in the final half-minute for the Lady Tornadoes.
UC (12-15) thus qualified for the regionals for the eighth time in the past nine seasons, but will first play second-ranked and defending state champion Greenfield, Wednesday night at 6, at the Elam Center on the campus of UT Martin.
The Twister girls will then play in either the championship or consolation of the district Saturday night before advancing to the Region 7A event, which begins Feb. 21.
First-year head coach Chuck Reedy, who watched his squad lose two starters for season due to injury early in the year, then battle other injuries and sickness in the second half of the season, gushed with pride following Monday’s gritty win.
“This group paid their dues all year, and it was time for something good to happen to them,” a sweat-soaked Reedy said after the contest. “It certainly wasn’t pretty, but it came down to the hustle plays and the 50-50 balls in the fourth quarter.
“We made of lot of them then.”
With each team struggling offensively, Union City found itself down 24-21 with 1:23 to play after a Lady Red Devil 3-pointer.
Williams got the Purple and Gold within a point with a drive down the left side with 62 ticks showing. Following a Bradford turnover, Davis made a shot from the lane to put UC up 25-24 – the Lady Tornadoes’ first lead of the stretch run.
Theobald then hit the floor and came up with a loose ball with 3.8 seconds to go as the host team tried to work for the game-winning shot. She was fouled six-tenths of a second later and calmly bottomed both ends of a one-and-one to give the Twister girls a 27-24 advantage.
Union City had been just 2-for-8 at the charity stripe before Theobald connected to give her club a little cushion.
She then chased down an errant desperation Bradford pass as time expired to seal the victory.
“Postseason basketball usually comes down to how you play on the defensive end because the officials allow you to play a little more,” Reedy added. “Even though she only scored one point, I thought Shyon Stephens was the absolute star of the game for us because of the way she played on the defensive end.
“I am so pleased, too, because it would’ve been easy to put our heads down and look the other way when it looked like it just wasn’t our night. Instead, we were coachable, we stayed in the moment, and we made just enough plays on the offensive end to get by.”
Neither team led by more than four points in the tightly-played contest.
Theobald made a 3-pointer just before halftime to get UC within 13-12, then again connected from long range midway through the third stanza to put the Lady Tornadoes up 15-13.
Bradford carried a slim 18-17 lead into the fourth period and was up one at the four-minute mark before Kylie McCadney drew a key charge for Union City that set the stage for Williams’ drive that evened things up at 21 with 3:12 to go.
Williams finished with a game-high 13 points for the Twisters – a half-dozen of those coming in the fourth quarter. Theobald totaled eight.
Bradford, which had split a pair of regular season games with UC, finished its season with a 16-12 record.
Photo by Mike Hutchens.
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