The Cloudland girl’s basketball team took care of business in the second half on Tuesday night.
The Lady ‘Landers overcame a halftime deficit to take a 63-49 victory over Unicoi County inside Sonny Smith Gymnasium. On the boy’s side, the ‘Landers took a slim 63-59 victory.
For the Lady ‘Landers, it took a bit for them to get going. Unicoi pulled out to a 16-11 lead in the first quarter and maintained a 29-27 lead at the half.
Trinity Vines, however, made sure that the second half went Cloudland’s way. The senior scored 22 points in the second half to provide a spark for the homestanding Lady ‘Landers.
Cloudland, who outscored the Lady Blue Devils 11-2 in the third quarter, never looked back in the fourth quarter on the way to the nonconference win.
Vines finished with 27 points to lead Cloudland. Gracie Freeman added nine points, while Stacia Wilson, Mandy Benfield and Megan Lunsford had seven points each.
In the boy’s game, neither team was able to get separation from the other.
After Unicoi took a 13-10 lead into the second quarter, Cloudland countered with two 3-pointers from Hunter Shell to power past UC to take a 23-21 lead into the half.
The teams continued to trade shots in the third quarter as CHS was able to get a little breathing room entering the fourth. The Blue Devils, however, didn’t go quietly as they continued to cut into the CHS lead, Cloudland’s Robert Leeper tallied 10 points in the final eight minutes to help secure the win.
Shell led the way with 18 points, while Leeper had 14 points. Josh Blair tallied seven points in the win.
