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Sports

Woodstock Bounces Cherokee from 5-AAAAA Tournament

For the second year in a row, Cherokee will not qualify for the state basketball tournament.

Woodstock girls head coach Julie Crowe has been a part of the school’s basketball program for 13 of its 14 years in existence. Crowe is in her seventh season as the Woodstock head coach. Before that she spent six seasons as an assistant.

But not once has she been a part of a state tournament game.

That streak will now become a thing of the past as Woodstock beat Cherokee 58-44 in the first round of the Region 5-AAAAA tournament to earn its first-ever state tournament berth.

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“There’s a quote that I saw that I’ve been using the past couple of days,” Crowe said. “‘In order to get where you’ve never been, you’ve got to do what you’ve never done.’ It’s just one of those things where (our players) bought in. It’s a big time for them.”

Brianna Lakes dominated the game on the interior on both ends and finished with 18 points and 14 rebounds for Woodstock as the Wolverines led wire-to-wire.

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Woodstock built a 15-point lead in the second quarter, but things got interesting early in the second half when Cherokee used a 10-0 run to cut the lead to 24-22. But Woodstock responded with an 11-2 run in which Clara Young scored seven of her 16 points. Cherokee never made another serious challenge to the lead.

The loss for Cherokee makes it two straight seasons that the Warriors have missed the state tournament, a fact that doesn’t sit well with head coach Matt Cates.

“It’s never easy when you finish a season,” Cates said. “Only one team gets to finish with a win, and that team is the state champion. It’s a tough thing no matter what level you end at, but this one burns, especially when you don’t make it to the state tournament. Hopefully it burns at some of our kids, because I know it burns us as coaches.”

Cherokee got 13 points and five rebounds from point guard Alyssa Howell, but she fouled out of the game with 3:44 to play and her team trailing 54-37. Less than a minute later Cates waved the white flag and emptied his bench.

“I don’t think we were quite ready for the atmosphere of tournament basketball with such a young team,” Cates said. “But Woodstock had a lot to do with that. They played well.”

The Wolverines are assured a spot in the state tournament, but they still have two more region tournament games remaining in order to determine their seeding for state. They’ll try to advance to the region tournament finals when they take on top-seeded Etowah Friday at 7 p.m. A win in that game would assure the Wolverines a first-round home game in the state tournament.

Cherokee finishes its season with a  record of 11-14.

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