Why Oak Ridge's stunning loss to Bartlett in TSSAA basketball state tournament was so emotional
MURFREESBORO — Oak Ridge senior guard Ze’Yana Stewart tried to speak as best she could through the tears.
But there were a lot of tears after the Wildcats’ stinging 52-50 loss to Bartlett in the final seconds of the TSSAA basketball state tournament Class 3A quarterfinals Thursday at Murphy Center.
Oak Ridge (30-4) controlled most of the game, leading for nearly 27 minutes. Bartlett (24-11) won it on Faye Williams’ layup on an alley-oop inbounds play with 17 seconds left.
Ayana Porter’s shot on the Wildcats’ final possession rimmed out and Oak Ridge’s last hope was to steal the Bartlett inbounds pass with two seconds left.
“I still felt like we had a chance even (then),” said Stewart, who had a team-high 15 points and eight rebounds.
Bartlett brought the tallest team to the Class 4A state tournament, with five players 6-foot or taller and two standing 6-foot-2. The size difference didn’t matter for most of the game. Oak Ridge led from midway through the first quarter until Bartlett’s winning play — a lob pass that few high school girls basketball teams have in their arsenals.
“We walked through that. I knew the lob was coming,” Oak Ridge coach Paige Taylor said. “The frustration is just the determination to stop it. We had to have the determination to stop it, especially in close-game situations knowing it’s coming.”
Euleesha Mitchell scored 14 points for Oak Ridge and Porter added 12.
Oak Ridge was making its first state tournament appearance since 2019. Its last girls basketball state title came in 1997, when it routed Shelbyville, then led by current MTSU women’s basketball coach Rick Insell, 54-35, in the Class AAA final.
The Wildcats hadn’t been to the state tournament since 2019 before finally getting over the hump this season.
“It just showed how much we improved,” Porter said. “It feels good to at least make it to state, even though we wanted to move forward and make it to the state championships. I I felt like we grew a lot, so that was a big step for us. I’m just proud of this team.”
Tyler Palmateer covers high school sports for The Tennessean. Have a story idea for Tyler? Reach him at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, formerly Twitter, @tpalmateer83.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: TSSAA girls basketball state tournament 2025: Bartlett defeats Oak Ridge
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