Lexi Hammock and the Coalfield Yellow Jackets faced Moore County in a 2025 TSSAA Division I Girls Class 1A State Quarterfinal on Wednesday, March 12, at the Murphy Center on campus at Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro, Tenn. (Photo by Danny Parker/5Star Preps)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — Lexi Hammock couldn’t contain her excitement. The Coalfield sophomore guard still had one more free throw to shoot before the historic moment truly played out. But after making the first of her two attempts with 5 seconds left in Wednesday’s state quarterfinal, she walked halfway down the lane and yelled toward the Coalfield student section, getting her peers as fired up as she was.
She flipped the switch back to calm mode and put the final stroke on a 54-41 win, hitting the next shot to punctuate a win over Moore County — and giving Coalfield its first-ever state tournament victory.
Hammock finished with 13 points. Mattie Beard had 14 and Lilly-Claire Lowe 12. Lily Wright had seven points and 10 rebounds and six assists.
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The Coalfield High school girls’ basketball team has checked off a number of accomplishments this season, such as program records for wins in a season (31) and consecutive wins (now at 17).
They’ll play in their first semifinal at 9:30 a.m. Central time Friday at MTSU’s Murphy Center against Van Buren (27-6).
“The Coalfield community. It’s a small community. It’s just a great place. In about 36 hours we raised enough money — and I didn’t have to call one single person for money — to come down here for the whole week and feed the girls. Getting them down here, it was just unbelievable,” Coalfield first-year coach Josh Wright said. “I don’t know how many calls and texts and messages that we’ve got that are “good luck,” even from communities around our area.
“It means so much. … for us to get over the hump and get that first win, it’s a great feeling. I’m so proud of these girls.”
Coalfield (31-5) hadn’t been to state since 2010 but didn’t show many nerves Wednesday.
It enjoyed a 12-point lead to start the fourth quarter. But Moore County, the 2024 state runner-up, shot 4 of 11 at the foul line and 1 of 9 from 3 after the halftime break, which essentially prevented them from making any kind of rally. Miss Basketball finalist Elle Graham, who played for Moore County with a broken nose, had 13 points, 15 rebounds and four steals. But she struggled from the floor (4 of 14) and free-throw stripe (5 of 11).
Coalfield struggled at the foul line, as well.
It made just 14 of 27 for the contest and 11 of 21 in the second half.
But with 2:26 to go in the fourth and Coalfield leading by eight, Lily Wright bent down to tie her left shoe before attempting two free throws.
Did her shoe really need tying? Probably not.
Call it a reset moment, something to throw off the trend of misses.
And it worked. She made her two free throws to push the lead to 48-38. Moore County, a team loaded with seniors, never got closer than nine points the rest of the way.
“I knew I needed to slow down and gather myself. The shoe may have been tied, it may not have,” Lily Wright said with a wry smile. “We’ll never know.”
Coalfield led by five at the break, and the second half couldn’t have commenced any better for the Lady Yellow Jackets as Beard popped in a corner 3 for an eight-point cushion just 27 seconds into play. But Coalfield went 0-for-4 at the foul line in the next few minutes, squandering scoring chances and allowing Moore County to creep closer.
At the 4:38 mark in the third, Coalfield was 3-for-10 shooting at the free-throw line for the game and led just 28-24.
No matter, though. They manifested a scoring burst with half-court and transition execution. Beard struck again from the left corner for 3 and gave the Lady Yellow Jackets a 31-24 advantage.
“Mattie’s comfortable shooting anywhere,” Coach Wright quipped in the post game.
Lilly Claire Lowe added two point-blank-range scores and Hammock added one, as well, and Coalfield stretched its lead to 37-26 with 3:09 left in the third.
Coalfield wasn’t done. Hammock’s 3-point play 30 seconds later made Coalfield’s lead 40-28. The 12-point buffer remained the same to start the fourth quarter.
Coalfield showed no signs of struggling with arena shooting, as most high school teams are prone to do when they either haven’t played in a state tournament or haven’t in recent years. The Lady Yellow Jackets connected on three of their first four shots and wound up making 9 of 19 shots in the first half for a 47.4 percent clip.
“We’re feast or famine. We either make everything early or nothing early,” Coach Wright said.
They opened their largest lead of the opening 16 minutes when Hammock’s jumper in the lane fell through at the 1:18 mark of the second quarter. That pushed Coalfield ahead 23-18, despite having 14 turnovers — which Moore County’s wingspan length on defense had much to do with producing.
Coalfield negated its turnover problem by out-rebounding Moore County, 22-10, in the first half.
“I told (the girls), ‘They have run this (defensive) press for years,'” Coach Wright said of Moore County.
“They’ve done this. This is what they do. We have to calm down and quit trying to throw the deep ball. Just move it up the floor slowly. And I think we did better in the second half.”
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