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For the No. 2 entry on our Raider Retrospective Countdown list, we’ll shake things up a bit.

In the last three entries, we took a look back at one sporting event or story that was written previously and then modified to provide some background information and context on what happened afterwards.

I knew I wanted to include the Lady Raider basketball team at some point in this list, but there were so many great moments from the 2024-25 season that I couldn’t choose just one.

So instead of looking back at one particular game or story, this entry will be an amalgamation of moments that made the Lady Raiders’ season one to remember.

Prologue

You can’t really talk about the 2024-25 season without at least a small mention of the 2023-24 campaign.

In that season, the Lady Raiders won their first Region Championship in nearly five decades and made their first State Tournament appearance since the 1993 State Championship-winning team.

Usually, teams of that caliber tend to be stacked with senior players, but in 2023-24, the Lady Raiders had no seniors, meaning that a team full of talent and postseason experience had the potential to be even better in 2024-25.

Regular Season

If there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that the Lady Raiders could match their storybook season from the previous year, it would’ve been wiped away after the team’s 94-21 thrashing of Siegel in the season opener on Nov. 19. The 94-point total and 73-point margin of victory would never be matched or bettered through the 2024-25 campaign, but it’s hard to think of a better opening statement than scoring almost 100 points in the first game of the season.

The kicker? The Lady Raiders didn’t have key cog and Southern Indiana-commit Channah Gannon in the lineup that night, who missed the first three games of the season due to injury. It just goes to show how stacked this team was in terms of talent.

The Lady Raiders ended the month of November at 5-0, with one of the highlights being a 40-31 dogfight over defending 4A District 10 Champions Nolensville in the Hall of Fame Playday on Nov. 23.

In the first two weeks of December, the Lady Raiders completed a sweep of Franklin County with two fairly close wins, a 53-42 win at home on Dec. 3 and a 60-47 win in Winchester on Dec. 13 with a dominant 60-33 home win over local rival Tullahoma on Dec. 6 and a 60-47 home win over York on Dec. 7 sandwiched in between.

As the winter season rolled in, the Lady Raiders collected two championships in holiday tournaments. On Dec. 23, Coffee County took home the DTC Classic Championship after winning three games in a span of four days at Gordonsville High School, with the final game being a 74-35 win over Cumberland County. One week later, the Lady Raiders completed a trip to Alabama by winning the Christmas Beach Bash Championship in Gulf Shores with victories over Louisiana’s Parkview Baptist and Alabama schools Priceville and Mountain Brook.

In their first game of 2025, the Lady Raiders slugged out a 58-53 victory over the Bartlett Panthers in the Granges Crossover Hoopfest at Bethel University on Jan. 4 in one of their most impressive wins of the 2024-25 campaign. The Panthers were coming off of a 4A State Championship Game appearance in each of the previous two seasons.

The Lady Raiders then closed out the non-district portion of their schedule with dominant road wins at Tullahoma and Siegel on Jan. 7 and Jan. 9 respectively.

District play was all but a breeze for the Lady Raiders, who went 10-0 against their 4A District 9 foes, averaging 71.5 points per game and allowing 30 points per contest. The only team that put up much of a fight was fellow 4A State Tournament team Lincoln County, but the Lady Raiders still swept both contests with a 61-51 victory at home on Jan. 24 and a 56-45 win in Fayetteville on Feb. 11.

The Lady Raiders finished the regular season with a perfect 28-0 record and their eighth consecutive Regular Season District Championship.

Postseason

In the 4A District 9 Tournament at Shelbyville, the Lady Raiders cruised past Warren County with a 66-32 victory in the semifinals on Feb. 22, then outdueled Lincoln County 59-55 two days later to claim their sixth consecutive District Tournament crown.

The Lady Raiders continued to make things look easy in the Region 5 Tournament, cruising past Franklin 73-33 in the quarterfinals, slipping past Page 62-44 in the semifinals and outclassing Lincoln County for a fourth time 58-43 to win the Region Title for a second straight year.

On March 5, the Lady Raiders defeated Mt. Juliet 84-44 in the Sectionals, punching their ticket to another State Tournament appearance, but which side of the bracket would they be on?

In the months leading up to the State Tournament, two teams remained consistently at No. 1 and No. 2 in the Statewide Rankings; Bradley Central and Coffee County.

If the TSSAA had a system similar to the NCAA, the top teams would avoid facing each other in the early rounds, but instead, a blind draw takes place before the Sectional Games are even played and teams from the same region are usually placed on different sides of the State Tournament bracket.

With those parameters in place, it was inevitable that Coffee County would draw Region 3 Champions Bradley Central, the defending Class 4A State Champions from the previous two seasons, and to the ire of everyone in Coffee County, that is exactly what happened.

“Goliath Vs Goliath”

Despite the controversial placement in the bracket, and a 53-33 loss to the Bearettes in last year’s State Semifinals still hovering overhead, the Lady Raiders gave Bradley Central a run for their money in March 13’s State Quarterfinals.

The Bearettes led by as much as 17 points in the first quarter, but Coffee County’s defense settled in for the second, holding Bradley Central to just two field goals and whittling the Bearette lead to 26-20 at the halftime break.

Coffee County drew as close as five points in the second half, but for the final two and a half minutes of regulation, momentum completely swung back to the Bearettes, who went on to win the game 53-44, handing Coffee County their only loss of the season.

“All week, people would call me and give a David versus Goliath story, and I would tell them, this isn’t David against Goliath, this is Goliath versus Goliath,” Coach Joe Pat Cope said after the game. “These teams were No. 1 and No. 2 in the state, and it’s a shame that we have to meet on Thursday night in the same bracket…That was a gold ball game, and the winner tonight was going to win the whole tournament in my opinion. Mark my words, Bradley won’t have a game that close for the rest of the week.”

Bradley Central went on to win their third consecutive 4A State Title with a 66-39 win over Bearden in the Semis and a 70-28 thrashing of Bartlett in the Championship Game.

The Lady Raiders ended the 2024-25 campaign at 34-1.

Accolades, Achievements and Aftermath

Despite an early end to the campaign, the Lady Raiders racked up a plethora of rewards.

For 4A District 9, four players were named to the Regular Season All-District team (Channah Gannon, Olivia Vinson, Jules Ferrell and Natalie Barnes) with three of those four (Gannon, Vinson and Ferrell) also making the All-Tournament team. Gannon also took home Regular Season and Tournament MVP honors. In the superlative awards, Ava McIntosh was named Most Improved, Jaydee Nogodula was named Sixth Man of the Year and Joe Pat Cope was awarded Coach of the Year.

Gannon, Vinson, Ferrell and Barnes were also named to the 4A Region 5 All-Region team with Gannon taking MVP honors there as well.

After the conclusion of the State Tournament, Channah Gannon and Olivia Vinson were both named to the TSWA All-State Team. For Vinson, it was the second straight year that she was named All-State.

Gannon, as well as Natalie Barnes, was also nominated for The Tennessean’s Nashville area Player of the Year, and Joe Pat Cope won the publication’s Large Class Coach of the Year award.

Amongst the accolades, several other milestones were achieved. Natalie Barnes and Channah Gannon each reached the 1,000 career points mark with Barnes accomplishing the feat in a 77-36 victory over Clinton during the DTC Classic on Dec. 21 and Gannon reaching the mark in the Jan. 4 win over Bartlett. Olivia Vinson, who hit the 1,000th point mark in the previous yearyear, passed 1,500 points towards the end of the regular season. Coach Joe Pat Cope also passed the 350 career wins mark as a head coach as a head coach.

In the offseason, the Lady Raiders lost a total of four starters. Olivia Vinson and Channah Gannon have each moved on to play basketball at the NCAA Division I level with Lipscomb and Southern Indiana respectively, Ava McIntosh also graduated and prolific guard Jules Ferrell transferred to Middle Tennessee Christian.

Epilogue

It was extremely tough to single out one particular event from this season and even when looking back at it as a whole, I had an extremely tough time putting this as the No. 2 story on the countdown. Honestly, if I were to look back on this list in the future and toss a coin between this story and the one I’ve selected for the No. 1 spot, I would be happy with the outcome either way.

If any moment from the 2024-25 Lady Raider basketball season was your favorite CCCHS sports moment of the school year, then I honestly can’t blame you. The season was an absolute joy to witness, and I don’t think anybody in Manchester would disagree with that sentiment.

Next Week

We will take a look at three honorable mentions that missed out on our Raider Retrospective Countdown.