By: Lee Ramsey
For the first time ever, Seymour met Sevier County in a district basketball matchup.  Under the new alignment, the Eagles and the Smokey Bears are in the 2-AAA district together.
It was a packed crowd at Seymour High School, with the Seymour pep band and students combining for a very electric atmosphere.  
The Lady Eagles did not disappoint the home crowd by blowing out the Bearettes 45-29. Sevier County held close the first half with the score 19-14.  Things changed quickly in the second half as the Lady Eagles went on a 13-2 run at the beginning of the third quarter to go up 32-16, and that pretty much finished the Bearettes.
Casie Cowan led the Lady Eagles with 18 points followed by Shae Brown with 13.  
Seymour Coach Andy Rines had this to say, “We played with great effort and focus, and we did it for 32 minutes.  We got a lot of good stuff out of our press.  It was pretty effective.”  When asked about his star point guard Casie Cowan, Rines responded, “Casie did a great job, I felt like she took over the game.  We challenged her tonight, and she always responds.”  The Lady Eagles record is 6-3 overall and 3-1 in the district.
On the boys’ side, the opposite results occurred.  The Sevier county Smokey Bears made it a long night for the Seymour Eagles winning convincingly 57-26.  The contest was never close.
Seymour was without its’ leading scorer, Tyler Tilson who in last week’s game against Morristown West tore two ligaments in his ankle and may be out for the season.  The loss was too much to overcome as the Eagles struggled to score the entire game.  At the half, the Smokey Bears led 28-6 and with 6:20 to go in the third quarter the lead increased to 34-6.  In two and a half quarters, Seymour had managed only 6 points.  Late in the third quarter, Sevier County led by a shocking 41-10 margin.  The Smokey Bears defense was awesome.  Coach Ken Wright had this to say, “We came out and played great defense to start the game.  The shots started falling.  The game was won with our defense tonight.”
Sevier County’s defensive pressure was outstanding and the inside presence of 6’8” Jordan Hendrickson was very intimidating with numerous blocked shots which forces the Eagles to take more outside forced shots.
Garrett Hillard led Seymour with 12 points mostly from the outside.  He was followed by Griffin with 4.
Sevier County was led in scoring by Zack Carlson with 17 and Josh Johnson with 12.
The Eagles record is 2-7 overall and 0-3 in the district.
Seymour will go to Morristown West next.

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