COLUMBIA---The Tullahoma Wildcats (4-4 district) put together one of their best performances of the season Friday night in a crucial, 50-37 win over the Columbia Lions (3-5).

Wildcat senior Cass Barnes soars for two of his 12 points in Friday night's win at Columbia. Barnes was a bit under the weather but played all but a few minutes.

  With the win, the Wildcats move a full game ahead of the Lions in the district standings, but they also have two wins over Columbia, which would give them the edge in any eventual tie-breaking procedure. While Tullahoma took over third place with the win, Lawrence County (4-4) lingers right on the Wildcats’ heels, and Lawrence County will be in Tullahoma Friday night for another crucial contest.
  The Wildcats took over Friday night’s game with a near-perfect second quarter. It was 10-10 at the end of the first period, but from the time Adam Barnett nailed a three-pointer 13 seconds into the second stanza, the Wildcats took control. They would go on to 13 straight points to take a 23-10 lead before Columbia scored its lone basket of the quarter with 10 seconds left. Even that was neutralized when senior Tyler Hatfield hit a pair of free throws with no time on the clock to send the Wildcats to the locker room with a 25-12 half-time lead.
  While it could be legitimately said that every Wildcat that took the floor played well, no one had a better game than Hatfield who came off the bench early in the contest and wound up leading the team with 18 points, and he was extremely active in coach Jeff Taylor’s zone defense.
  It was that active 2-3 zone that proved the decisive factor in the contest against a speedy Columbia club that struggled to find good shots most of the evening, and when the Lions did find the shots they wanted, they usually only did so after several time-consuming passes that kept the pace of the game a lot slower than they like it.
  The Cats also executed Taylor’s offensive game play well, spreading the floor and using a series of screens and cuts to get the shots they wanted. And, when they found those shots, they usually hit them.
  After Hatfield’s seven second-quarter points helped the Cats establish a 13-point half-time lead, the Lions fought throughout the third quarter but never got the lead under eight points. That’s how it stood, 35-27, at the start of the fourth quarter when Hatfield hit a three-pointer just 19 seconds into it to stretch the lead back to 11 at 38-27. Columbia never got closer than nine the rest of the way.
  Three of Tullahoma’s next four games will be non-district contests. Smyrna visits Monday night, then comes the big district showdown Friday against Lawrence County, which will also feature homecoming festivities at the THS gym. Tullahoma travels to Warren County Saturday then to Marshall County Monday.

Wildcats (50) Tyler Hatfield, 18; Tryston Horton, 9; Chance Askins, 2; Adam Barnett, 3; Cass Barnes, 12; Alan Prince, 6.
Columbia (37) Childress, 4; O’Neal Braden, 20; Dudley, 2; Lockridge, 5; Robinson, 2; Poynter, 2; Cooper, 2.