The Oak Ridge Wildcats matched up with the Bartlett Panthers in a TSSAA Class 4A state tournament quarterfinal at the Charles M. Murphy Athletic Center on Thursday, March 13, 2025, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — Consider it rare in high school girls basketball when you have to defend against a lob pass on an inbounds play.
Despite the infrequency of it, Oak Ridge still prepared to guard against it. Oak Ridge coach Paige Taylor knew it was coming and had walked her team through it in game preparation.
The Lady Wildcats just couldn’t stop it.
Bartlett used two of those plays in the final 90 seconds of Thursday’s 4A state quarterfinal at MTSU’s Murphy Center to get past Oak Ridge 52-50.
Ze’Yana Stewart scored 15, Euleesha Mitchell 14, and Ayana Porter 12, but the Lady Wildcats (30-4) lost for the first time in the 2025 portion of their schedule — their 20-game win streak coming to an end.
Tournament-regular Bartlett advanced to its third consecutive state semifinal, after state runner-up finishes in 2023 and 2024.
Oak Ridge, which was making its first state appearance since 2019, held an eight-point lead on Bartlett entering the fourth quarter.
That evaporated quickly, the entire buffer gone with 5 minutes and 27 seconds left to play. And when Anniya Bailey made two foul shots with 4:35 remaining, Bartlett hopped into the lead (46-45) for the first time since the 6:55 mark of the first quarter.
Ze’Yana Stewart got to the foul line with 3:15 left to play and made two shots to put Oak Ridge ahead 49-48. She added one more free throw 90 seconds later for a two-point cushion.
But that set the stage for Bartett’s first lob. Bartlett tied it at 50-all on a baseline inbounds alley-oop play to bouncy 6-foot Zoey Rixter at the 1:25 mark.
“It’s fantastic luxury. … When you have athletes, when you got kids who can run and move and jump, it’s great,” Bartlett coach Wesley Shappley said. “I’ll be honest: I wouldn’t be a very good coach without that. So for the ability of a kid like Zoey to finish that and be able to jump up and grab that and finish it all in one motion is pretty special.”
Oak Ridge burned clock and then Stewart drove in for a potential go-ahead layup from the right side. The shot didn’t fall and no foul was called.
That gave Bartlett possession with 18.4 seconds to go, the game still knotted at 50.
Inbounding from near half court, Bartlett lofted a pass up to the backside of the rim for 6-2 Faye Williams, who caught the lob and scored to put Bartlett out in front for good. That shot fell with 17 seconds left. Oak Ridge’s attempt to tie on the other end by Porter was short.
“I’m really kind of at a loss for words right now,” Oak Ridge coach Paige Taylor said. “There was a combination of a lot of things going on that caused the last two or three minutes to break down.”
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Euleesha Mitchell scored 12 first-quarter points on 5-for-7 shooting, and Ayana Porter’s 3-point play in the final seconds of the opening frame gave the Lady Wildcats a 22-15 advantage.
Oak Ridge cooled off from there, though. It only scored six points in the second quarter to lead at the break 28-25. The Lady Wildcats shot 32.4 percent in the first half but won the rebounding edge (26-18) and only committed six turnovers.
Porter’s 3-pointer two minutes into the third moved Oak Ridge out in front by eight (35-27). The Lady Wildcats opened the third on a 7-2 run, sparked by two scores in the paint by Ze’yana Stewart.
After Bartlett’s press cut into Oak Ridge’s lead some, Stewart made a reverse layup and then two foul shots in the final minutes of the third to regain momentum. Porter’s layup in the final seconds of the quarter gave Oak Ridge a 43-35 lead heading into the fourth.
“This team, they’re fighters,” Taylor said. “They never quit. They kept fighting.
“They never gave up. They fought until the end.”