The Bearden Bulldogs faced the Bradley Central Bears in a TSSAA Class 4A state tournament semifinal at the Charles M. Murphy Athletic Center on Friday, March 14, 2025, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — The way Friday’s late-night Class 4A state semifinal began, one would have thought the Bearden Lady Bulldogs were the nationally ranked ones and the two-time defending state champions.
By game’s end, Bradley Central had firmly established its true identity.
Bearden darted out to a 10-point lead in the second quarter thanks to some high-energy play by junior guard Natalya Hodge, but heavily favored Bradley Central kick-started a comeback with an unrelenting and suffocating defensive pressure that propelled it to a 66-39 win.
The Bearettes (34-1) will play Bartlett (25-11) in the state final for a third consecutive season, that game being slated for a 6:30 p.m. Central start on Saturday at MTSU’s Murphy Center.
Bearden’s season concluded with a 33-6 mark, just one step from playing its first state final since winning it all in 2022.
The Lady Bulldogs led Friday 23-21 coming out of the half. But by the time the fourth quarter began, they trailed 45-30. Bearden never got closer than 14 points the rest of the way.
Bradley Central was ranked No. 8 recently by Sporting News and No. 13 by ESPN.
The Bearettes haven’t lost to an in-state team since Jan. 30, 2023 (McMinn Central).
“We went to our zone press the second half. That was a bad decision by me not to trust it to start the game,” Bradley Central coach Jason Reuter.
“The best decision we made at halftime was to go ahead and zone press them and get the ball out of Hodge’s hands.”
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Hodge made sure Bearden was the early aggressor. She hit three 3s in the first quarter, including one at the buzzer, to give Bearden a 15-9 lead. She had 12 points in the opening frame and then steered Bearden to a 23-13 advantage with consecutive layups midway through the second quarter.
“I feel like we were all hungry and ready, just to try and get a lead up on them and put them out of the game,” Hodge said. “I thought we were very hungry as a team.”
She reached the half with 16 points on 6-for-14 shooting.
Bradley Central, though, turned on its trapping defense and disrupted Bearden’s offensive flow the rest of the half. The Bearettes closed the second quarter on an 8-0 run to make the score 23-21 Bearden.
Bradley Central simply continued with its pressure defense once play resumed, turning three straight Bearden turnovers into six points for a 27-23 Bradley lead. And the Bearettes led 37-25 by the midpoint of the third, using its length and athleticism to score at will down low, be that by design or on put-back scores.
Hodge didn’t make a field goal after halftime and finished with 21 points.
Kendall Murphy had 12 points and 10 rebounds in her final game at Bearden.
“We practiced it (Bradley Central’s press) and practiced it many times today,” said Murphy. “And we have gone against it before. But it’s just a different ballgame in this atmosphere, and they’re a really good team.
“I think we just got sped up really quickly and didn’t have a chance to slow it down until it had gotten the worst of us.”