The Harriman Blue Devils kicked off their high school state basketball championship run tonight against the Mitchell Tigers. The Tigers were looking for their fourth straight state championship at the MTSU Murphy Center in Murfreesboro.

The Tigers never encountered the Blue Devils before.

Harriman jumped out to an early lead and held the lead for just shy of 30 minutes. The Tigers had the lead for only a minute an six seconds. At the end of the first quarter, Harriman led 14 to 9. By halftime, the Blue Devils had Mitchell 27 to 21.

Harriman would maintain their lead by six points at the end of the third quarter with the score 41 to 35.

Then the game towards the end would get strange.

A Mitchell fan came onto the court with 2:16 left in the game and that drew a techincal foul against the Tigers. The woman was escorted off the court. Even with that distraction, Harriman would not loose their composure. The Blue Devils went on to defeat Mitchell 59 to 54.

Isaiah McClain led the scoring for Harriman with 18. He was followed by Joe Pace with 14, John Johnson with 9, Hayden Bingham with 8, Eli Duncan with 5, Joshua Davis with 3 and Trezdin Copeland with 2 points. As a team, Harriman shot 16 of 41 from the court and 23 of 40 from the free throw line. The highlight of the game was Harriman outrebounded Mitchell. The Blue Devils had 47 rebounds to the Tigers 33.

Harriman will now face Columbia Academy in the final four tomorrow night (Friday, March 17) at 6 p.m. at the MTSU Murphy Center in Murfreesboro. The winner of that game advances to the state title game Saturday night at 6 p.m. to play the winner of the Clay County/Knox Grace game.