©2009 NPT PHOTO BY SETH BUTLER

Lady Red senior Jalese Pruitt attempts a shot against
the defense of Lenoir City's Chelsey Moore in Tuesday's victory.
Pruitt scored 11 points off the bench and pulled down
eight rebounds in the winning effort.

LENOIR CITY-The opening night of the 2009-10 basketball season provided the Cocke County Lady Red a lot of positives.

It also provided them a lot to work on.

Cocke County raced out to a 34-7 lead over Lenoir City midway through the third quarter as their offense operated efficiently throughout most of the evening. As quickly as they built their lead, it crumbled into a 12-point edge at the mid-point of the fourth quarter.

Cocke County recovered from the Lady Panthers rally to pull away for a 56-37 victory in their first of two Hall of Champions games.

Lady Red senior Shannon Depew led Cocke County with a game-high 14 points and 17 rebounds, picking up from her junior season in which she averaged a double-double.

"Overall, I'm happy with our chemistry, I'm happy with our locker room attitude, and I believe this team can get better," Cocke County coach Wade Wester said. "That's what we are looking for - to find things we didn't do well and grow from that."

Cocke County (1-0) worked efficiently on the offensive end in the game, running an offense and focused on getting the ball inside. The Lady Red finished the game with 13 assists, which was a result of their strategy to work the basketball and get it into the paint against a much smaller Lady Panthers team.

"We knew that we were bigger than them, so we tried to give it to Allie (Sprouse) and JJ (Jalese Pruitt) and get the ball in the paint and bang around, and get into a rhythm and to get our chemistry better," Depew said. "We've been working on calming down and getting ourselves settled instead of fast breaking all the time.

"Since this was a little bit of a smaller team, we tried to just run our plays and get things settled and move the ball around," Depew said.

Cocke County got 34 points from their three post players, Depew, Sprouse and Pruitt, and another 10 points from guard Kendra Walker who penetrated to the basket throughout much of the game.

While Cocke County's offense erupted for a 27-7 lead at halftime, their defense plagued Lenoir City for much of the half. The Lady Panthers were held without a point in the second quarter as part of a 12:30 scoreless streak that allowed Cocke County to run their lead to a 27-point margin midway through the third quarter.

The large lead had Wester going to his bench to attempt to build depth for a team that lost a pair of senior starters and is attempting to gain experience at the guard position to back up starters Morgan Buda and Jayla Lane.

"We had some girls that came off the bench that gave us some good quality minutes and we didn't lose a beat when they came in," Wester said "They came in and handled the ball and did the right things.

"I would like to play some girls some more," Wester said. "I can't play the starters as much as I did tonight and expect to be competitive. Everyone is going to have to step up, including that second group coming in."

However, Lenoir City closed the gap to 40-18 at the end of the third quarter after hitting several shots and then closed the gap quickly as a full-court pressure defense forced the Lady Red into nine turnovers in the first five minutes of the final quarter.

"When we beat the press, we played into their hands and we played fast when we should've slowed it down," Wester said. "It was a little bit of my fault because I'm always teaching attack, and when you teach attack that happens sometimes."

Cocke County however recovered with a pair of big scores by Walker and Pruitt and finally began to solve the pressure for easy fast break lay-ups.

Wester said the key to surviving the run was his team not panicking and maintaining their composure.

"We kept our composure and no one was pointing fingers, everybody is talking to each other and telling them that they'll do their job," Wester said.

Depew agreed with her coach's assessment that communication made the big difference in surviving the rally by the Lady Panthers.

"We can talk to each other and calm each other down when they are on a run, and make sure we can get things back to playing our game, instead of their game," Depew said.

Cocke County (56): Shannon Depew 14, Jalese Pruitt 11, Kendra Walker 10, Allie Sprouse 9, Morgan Buda 7, Cidney Ball 2, Jayla Lane 1.

Lenoir City (37): Chelsey Moore 10, Tyler Powers 10, Kara Steil 9, Catherine Hunley 7, Kristi Brackett 1.

CCHS: 23/51 FG (45.1%), 9/16 FT (56.3%), 1/2 3-PT FG (50.0%), 46 RBS, 19 TO.

LCHS: 14/47 FG (29.8%), 5/10 FT (50.0%), 4/20 3-PT FG (20.0%), 18 RBS, 14 TO.

©2009 NPT PHOTO BY SETH BUTLER

Cocke County's Shannon Depew signed her National Letter of Intent
with Carson-Newman College on Wednesday afternoon. Those joining
Depew (front) at the signing ceremony included, from left, CCHS principal
Larry Williams, parents Shannon and Jackie Depew, Knoxville Girls Club
AAU head coach Mike Capps, CCHS Lady Red head coach Wade Wester
and Knoxville Girls Club AAU assistant coach Rob Wampler.

NEWPORT-As a little girl, Shannon Depew fell in love with the game of basketball.

As a young woman, she fell in love with Carson-Newman College and its basketball program.

Depew signed a National Letter of Intent on Wednesday, the first day of the NCAA early signing period, to continue her playing career and education at the Jefferson City school.

"This is what I've been looking forward since I was a little girl," Depew said. "I've been going in the gym and shooting all the time and working as hard as I could so I could get a scholarship.

"This is what I've been working for my whole life," Depew said.

Depew's work ethic, demonstrated by her late hours of work at the Cocke County High School gymnasium with her mother Jackie on a nightly basis, was the bulk of the discussion surrounding the ceremony after Depew signed her scholarship papers.

"It's a great lesson for our other girls to see what hard work does," Cocke County Lady Red coach Wade Wester said. "This is what happens when you bust your butt, good things happen. I try to tell my daughter the same thing everyday, because if you work, then good things will happen.

"She's worked at it, because she hasn't been tall and she hasn't been the quickest player on the floor, but she was one of the hardest workers," Wester said. "You do that day in, day out, you will get rewarded."

After her time at the prep level and throughout the summer AAU circuits, Depew realized it would take hard work and effort to be able to get herself in the position to earn a scholarship offer from a major school.

"All the college coaches have told me if I keep playing hard and hustling then I could go anywhere," Depew said. "I always talked to my mom during the summers and ask her what am I going to do when I had in the gym every night and if I did not get a scholarship after working that hard.

"She told me I would get one and to keep working hard and you'll get what you want," Depew said.

Depew kept working and spent hours upon hours in the gymnasium, working to perfect her shot and her game.

The results showed as her statistical averages show. Her scoring average increased each year and her shooting percentage from the floor has raised nearly five percent since her freshman season. Her average from the free-throw line has increased nearly 10 percent in that same time span.

With the work ethic and corresponding results, along with the start of her junior season, the first full season college coaches can evaluate and make contact with prospects, she began to get the attention.

Walsh was one of those coaches whose attention was grabbed by the five-foot-10 Cocke County star, as he was at nearly one-third of the games of the Lady Red last season.

After talking to the coaching staff and the players in the program, Depew quickly found that the Lady Eagles program was a good fit for her and verbally committed to become one of the building blocks of the class of 2009-10 for Carson Newman.

"I went there this past spring to play ball and shoot around with the girls and they sold it," Depew said. "The coaches sold it too, they'd ask me how my day was and they seemed like they cared and wasn't there to just to recruit me.

"I love it so much there," Depew said. "Everybody sold it to me and I know that's where I wanted to be and where I would be happy at."

Depew plans to study nursing in her time at Carson Newman, which was another selling point for the school to its prized recruit.

"Miss (Sue) McBee, who is Skylar McBee's (University of Tennessee basketball player) mom and a nursing professor, sold it to me too," Depew said. "She told me it was possible if I put my heart into it and want to do it."

While the signing does signal Depew's final season in a Lady Red uniform is approaching, her coach was quick to point out that her high school career had one more year remaining, in which he expects much of the bulk of the team's activity to be centered around.

"She's not done playing for Cocke County," Wester said. "We've got dreams of going a long way and we hope we can put together something special around her."

He also noted that having a player the caliber of Depew pass through your program provides ample coaching opportunities for the future.

"It gives you a great lesson for the future, when I am coaching and I can say this what Shannon did, and that should click that means that is what a great player did," Wester said.