Area gyms were buzzing last week with the start of middle school basketball.
Clear Creek tipped off its season against the Union County Panthers Thursday.
The Lady Cats were at home, and Union won the seventh-grade game, 33-29. The eighth-grade Cats were up next and won decisively, 38-22. The Bobcats hit the road, and the seventh grade lost 50-44 before the eighth graders came out on top, 50-47.
Lady Cats
Seventh graders Jaylee McDaniel and Sarah Dale scored in double figures with 11 and 10 points, respectively, while both Madison Hall and Kenley Thompson added four.
Union found itself down by six points after a quarter and erased the deficit by halftime to tie the score, 18-18. CCMS entered the fourth with a 23-20 lead before Union’s Naomi Nelson got hot from the outside and scored 10 points.
The Cats were limited to six points in the quarter and UCMS came away with a four-point win.
Bree Burnette’s 15 points helped spark an early lead for the eighth graders. She scored 11 in the first half, which included a 6/10 effort from the free-throw line.
UCMS was held scoreless in the first quarter and fell behind 18-12 at halftime.
Lady Cats Gracie Pritchett tallied five points in the third and Gracie Gaitanoglou added three. Union was once again unable to score as Clear Creek’s lead was extended to 26-12.
CCMS kept the points coming in the fourth, and while Union did find some offensive success, it was not nearly enough to catch the Cats.
Pritchett finished with eight points and McDaniel scored six. Chelsey Griggs added four points, Gaitanoglou netted three and Dale posted two points.
Bobcats
After an evenly played first quarter, CCMS seventh graders were held scoreless in the second to trail 23-11 at the half.
The Cats were able to trim Union’s lead to 31-23 entering the fourth where Clear Creek’s A.J. Callihan, Douglas Callihan and Andrew Chastain all made three pointers. The Cats’ offense was bolstered by 10 points from the free-throw line, but CCMS fell short at the end.
Douglas Callihan scored 15 points, Peyton Chancey added eight, A.J. Callihan finished with seven and Chastain scored six. Preston McVey tallied four, and both Jase McCollum and Chaz Curtis scored two.
The eighth-grade back court of Boston Teague and Keegen Bryant were there for 20 and 14 points, respectively. The duo accounted for all of the Bobcats’ points in the first half as Union held a 31-24 advantage.
Jaden Sevcech, Connor Nelson and Chase Little joined in on the scoring action in the third where CCMS outpaced UCMS 12-4 to slip ahead, 36-35.
Chancey and Douglas Callihan came off the bench to score points in the fourth, and Teague added six more. Clear Creek shot 1/7 from the line in while Union made 2/7 in the final quarter, and CCMS claimed its first win.