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On Tuesday night, the Lady Raiders and Red Raiders opened their district schedule with home wins over Shelbyville Central.

Coffee Central Basketball was back at The Patch for the first time since Dec. 9 and as both teams returned to begin district play, they treated the home crowd with two very different basketball games.

The first contest of the night would prove to be a high scoring shootout between the Lady Raiders and the Golden Eagles.

It was a tight battle in the first quarter as the Lady Raiders edged ahead of Shelbyville, 12-10. 

Scoring picked up in the second as the Lady Raiders outscored the Golden Eagles 22-18 to lead at halftime, 34-28.

The Lady Raiders would add to their lead in the third, outscoring Shelbyville 22-18 again to take a 10 point lead into the fourth with the score being 56-46.

Coffee would pull away in the fourth quarter to win 73-61.

“You have to tip your hat to Shelbyville,” said Coach Joe Pat Cope. “They’ve improved a lot and they look like a good basketball team. Lately, we’ve been allowing too many three pointers. If another team shoots the ball good and you play bad defense that’s a bad combination, so we have to be better on defense.”

Scoring for the Lady Raiders were Olivia Vinson with 22 points, Natalie Barnes with 21 points, Jules Ferrell with 13 points, Ava McIntosh with eight points, Audri Patton with five points and Ella Arnold with three points.

The Lady Raiders improved to 17-3 and are now 1-0 in district play. 

For the second contest of the night, the Red Raiders would slug it out in a low scoring contest with the Golden Eagles.

The Red Raiders controlled at the start, leading the Golden Eagles 17-10 after the first quarter.

Scoring slowed down in the second quarter as the Golden Eagles outscored Coffee 7-6, but the Red Raiders still led at halftime, 23-17.

The low scoring battle continued into the third quarter as Shelbyville again outscored Coffee 7-6, but the Red Raiders stayed in front 29-24 heading into the fourth. 

As the fourth quarter came to a close, Coffee led 34-30 with a minute to go.

The Golden Eagles would cut the lead to 34-31 with a free throw, then the Red Raiders turned it over on the ensuing inbounds pass and the Golden Eagles capitalized with a bucket to make it a one point game, 34-33 with 46 seconds to go.

On their next possession, the Red Raiders would kill 25 seconds of clock off before being fouled.

Jackson Shemwell hit one of his two free throws to make it 35-33, and as the Red Raiders came up with the rebound on the missed second shot, they were fouled again.

Cooper Reed went to the line and hit both shots to give Coffee a four point lead, 37-33 with 15 seconds remaining.

The Red Raiders would hold on to win, 38-33.

“Offensively, we were a little out of rhythm,” said Coach Andrew Taylor. “But we rebounded the ball well, played good defense and made our free throws.”

The win would also be the fourth straight for the Red Raiders.

“It’s important to keep that momentum going,” said Taylor. “Every night you go out and play, think about what you did right, fix what you didn’t do right and grow. Every game is important now.”

Scoring for the Red Raiders were Jackson Shemwell with 13 points, Brady Wright with eight points, Cooper Reed with five points, Camden Hunt and Jayden Carter with four points each, Courtland Farrar with three points and Levi Rollman with one point.

The Red Raiders improved to 10-9 and are 1-0 to begin district play.

Coffee County Basketball returns to action on Friday, Jan. 12 at Columbia Central.