Gilmer High ended its basketball season in the first round of the region tournament.
The No. 5 seeded Bobcats were at Northwest Whitfield last Tuesday to take on the No. 4 LaFayette Ramblers. The Cats’ offense never got going, and after they lost the lead late in the first quarter, LHS was off and running. The Ramblers led by 12 at the half, outscored the Cats 25-5 in the third and won, 60-29.
“I thought we played really well through most of the first half,” said head coach Sean Glaze. “I think we were down maybe five points with a couple of minutes left and then had a couple of turnovers and went in at halftime down 12. Then we came out and again just had a rough third quarter that kind of got away from us. That was probably the difference in the game.”
Multiple players who had been starters or heavy contributors saw their minutes cut significantly.
“I thought that our freshman, Noah Rice, did a great job trying to lead us at point guard,” Glaze said. “Andrew Chastain, Alex Miltiades and couple other kids did a really nice job of trying to do what we had talked about in terms of game plan and defensive effort.
“We were obviously without two or three kids who we had issues with in previous weeks.”
The Cats made four shots in the opening quarter and that is as good as it got. GHS was 19 percent from the field, which included a 3/29 three-point effort. LHS did not torch the nets early either and stumbled to a 15-10 lead after a quarter. However over the next two quarters, the Ramblers made 54 percent of their attempts.
LHS doubled the Cats’ points in the second to lead 29-17 at the half and were up 54-23 after the third. The fourth quarter was shortened by two minutes and LaFayette went on to win decisively.
Rice scored nine points and was followed by Jaden Sevcech (six), Douglas Callihan (five) and Miltiades, Chastain and Preston McVey all scored three. Miltiades pulled down seven rebounds, Callihan and McVey secured six apiece and Chastain had five.
GHS finished the season with a 7-18 record.