Stone boys struggle in opener

The Stone Memorial Panthers, playing a talented Jackson County team in the season opener Tuesday, experienced some first-game jitters and came away on the short end of a 72-60 decision in Crossville.

“It was disappointing that we came out and we let them score. We let them score 27 in the first quarter,” said Stone Coach Jess Raby. “I thought we had a pretty good game plan of playing off of some guys trying to help out inside, but that kid’s [Jackson County center Will McCreary] a really good player. He had 24 tonight.

“Jackson County hit a lot of threes. We had some breakdowns defensively. They do a lot of good stuff of setting screens and then other screens, and we didn’t do a good job of defending it.”

The loss drops Stone Memorial to 0-1 on the season, while the Blue Devils improve to 1-0.

“I didn’t do a good job of coaching that kind of stuff. So we gave up way too many threes. They also shot a lot of free throws,” Raby said. “They shot a ton of free throws, and they made them. And Jackson County runs really good stuff. That was obviously a tough first game.”

The game went back and forth early. The Panthers led 10-7, but Jackson County came back and led 16-14. Stone got buckets from Jack Cordell and Briggs Lowe, but still trailed 27-19 after the first quarter.

Hunter Haney got a basket in the second period, as did Kadyn Page and Jake Hennessee. The Blue Devils picked up baskets from McCreary and Parker Patterson and Jackson County took a 37-28 lead into intermission.

Unfortunately for Panther nation, a big part of Jackson County’s offensive punch came at the free throw line. Stone made 7 of 14 charity tosses, while the Blue Devils converted 19 of 26 free throws.

“There’s a lot of different things there that can play a role in free throws,” said Raby. “For us, it might be that we didn’t attack enough and get to the line. That means getting to the line, being strong, being physical, not being finesse, not just settling. And they obviously got to the free throw line a whole lot more than us.”

The Blue Devils widened their lead in the second half of play. Jackson County led 54-39 after three periods before reaching the final margin of 72-60.

“Now, of course, in the second half, we had to play a bit more aggressive. And some of those were actually fouls, but then we also picked up some really bad fouls,” Raby said. “I’m just thinking about probably three or four fouls that gave them automatically two shots.

“They got into the bonus so early in the third quarter. And some of those, I was a little upset about. We went over the back. We fouled someone 40 foot from the rim. We reached on a couple.”

Cordell led Stone with 18 points on the night. Lowe had 10 points and Page scored nine. Evin Moseley chipped with eight points, while Hennessee scored four. Haney added four points, while Tanner Bowman, Noah Potter and Evan Slone scored two each.

McCreary had a game high of 24 points to lead Jackson County. Patterson added 23.

“I learned [from this game] that we didn’t give up,” Raby said.

“I know it ended up being a 12-point game, but we got it down to single digits.”

“It was a little bit of a struggle for players that often do make a lot of shots and stuff. That’s gonna happen sometimes, especially in first game jitters. The thing is we can really grow from this.”