Midway traveled south to Tellico Plains Tuesday for the 2nd game of the regular season. To say that Tellico has a good basketball program would be an understatement. Both Tellico’s girls and boys teams are heavy favorites to make deep playoff runs this year and their talent was on display Tuesday night against Midway. The Tellico girls would win 62-40 over the Lady Wave. The Midway boys managed to hang with Tellico during some stretches of the game but ultimately the Bears had too much offense and would defeat the Wave 74-62.
The Tellico Lady Bears jumped out to a sizeable lead in the first quarter, 19-6, with 5 Lady Bears getting into the scoring column. After the slow start, the Lady Wave would tighten down defensively in the second, but Tellico remained in control 31-16 going into the half. Much of the Midway offense was coming from the free-throw line with 8 of Kyleigh Cawood’s 10 points coming from the charity strip to lead the scoring for Midway. Tellico would continue to set the pace in the second half and go on to the 18-point victory.
Tellico had balance scoring with 7 of the 9 girls scoring. Midway’s offense was led by Cawood with 13, followed by Kali Kile with 8 and Addie Arms with 7.
The Midway boys didn’t fare much better either against the Bears. Down 8-15 after the first, Midway’s offense was more productive in the 2nd quarter however, they could not get needed stops on the defensive side. Midway’s Cooper Queener would score 7 of his 10 in the second quarter to help lead the charge. But the Bears picked apart the Midway zone, putting up 23 points in the quarter to take a 38-23 lead into the half.
Midway would continue to put up better numbers offensively in the second half scoring 19 and 20 in the 3rd and 4th respectively while holding Tellico to 36 second half points. Dalton Cowell scored 14 of his 16 in the second half. But the Wave couldn’t overcome their first half deficit and the Bears would win 74-62.
Midway’s offense was led by Brennan Reed with 17, Cowell with 16 and Queener with 10.
Midway will be back in action on Tuesday as they hit the road again to Oliver Springs to face the Bobcats in their new gym.