Dawgs roll forcing Admirals mistakes
Jeremy Parrott may be new to the Bearden-Farragut rivalry, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand the series between the two Kingston Pike rivals.
So he knew how much Bearden’s 59-39 District 4-AAA road victory over the Admirals meant Friday night, Jan. 20.
“This is big,” said Parrott, the Bulldogs first-year head coach. “I’m new to this rivalry but I know how much they want to beat them.”
The Bulldogs improved to 11-7 overall, 6-3 in district. Faragut fell to 7-9, 3-6.
“We all knew what happened the last time we were over here,” Trent Stephney, Bearden sophomore guard, said about losing at FHS last season. “It was our home game but it was over here and we lost in overtime and we didn’t want to have a repeat of that.”
Stephney did his part in Bearden’s third consecutive victory over Farragut. He finished with 15 points.
Farragut head coach Chris Cool employed a triangle-and-two designed to contain Stephney and fellow sophomore guard Ques Glover, who finished with 13 points.
“Our game plan was to eat some clock on offense and control the tempo and make them play in the half-court and try to contain Glover and Stephney,” Cool said. “And I thought we did that. Both those guys, in the half court, didn’t score many baskets.
“If we take care of the ball we’re right there,” Cool added. “[Stephney and Glover] scored most of their points in transition when we turned the ball over. ... We had at least 20 turnovers.”
“I think we played pretty good defense. We just turned the ball over too much and they just scored in transition and that’s what really got the best of us,” said Nick Rogers, a senior guard who led the Ads with 13 points.
Chance Bolen and Shawn McKay each scored seven points.
“It’s always tough to lose to Bearden because they are our biggest rival,” Bolen, a senior post, said. “But we’ve got to come out and try to win [at least] three of these last five district games.
“We need to get a four-seed in the district tournament.”
