It’s hard to beat a team twice in a season. And if Monday’s Hattiesburg-Wayne County Class 5A Quarterfinal showed us anything, it’s that it’s even harder to beat a team three times.
Despite their 13-14 record and a pair of double digit losses to Hattiesburg in the regular season, the Lady War Eagles gave the Lady Tigers all they could handle Monday night.
“It’s hard to get yourself mentally prepared when you’ve already beaten a team twice by a substantial amount,” Hattiesburg coach Caronica DeBose Jackson said. “You look at their record and try to make them understand this is the playoffs. They’ve won three playoff games in a row, so they’re apparently playing a whole lot better basketball.”
Still, it wasn’t enough against the defending champs. The Lady Tigers (26-4) proved resilient down the stretch, and with a 45-41 win they’re headed back to Jackson for a fifth consecutive season and a ninth time overall.
“The fact that we had not been there up until 2008 and the fact that our kids have bought into it and had the talent to get us there, I think that speaks volumes as far as any sport,” Jackson said.
Her team will face Olive Branch in the Class 5A Semifinals on March 5 at the Mississippi Coliseum. Prior to Monday, the Lady Tigers had won 10 straight games by at least 10 points. Now, they’ll head to Jackson battle-tested after the close encounter with the Lady War Eagles, who certainly proved better than their record suggests.
With 41 seconds left in the first half, Wayne County took their first lead of the game, 19-18, as Lasharia Everett knocked down a pair of free throws. The Lady War Eagles took the slim lead into halftime, but they built on to it to start the second half, making it 23-18 with a 4-0 scoring run.
“They were just outplaying us,” Jackson said. “They were making the plays, and we were getting beat off the ball. They were making the extra pass and finishing on the inside.”
Following the run, Hattiesburg’s Ty Vance drained one of her three three-pointers on the night to cut the lead to two points, 23-21. A few minutes later, she gave the Lady Tigers the lead, 28-27, with a two-point basket. Vance finished with 13 critical points.
“The thing that has carried us all season is our inside game, and none of our posts were doing anything,” Jackson said. “All three of them had two fouls in the first half, and it just really wasn’t looking good for us as far as our inside game. Fortunately, Ty Vance stepped up and knocked down a couple of big three-pointers for us early in the game to keep us in the flow and hang on for the second half.”
Jackson’s top post, Melyia Grayson, had just four points in the first half. But in the fourth quarter alone, the junior had nine, including seven straight to put the Lady Tigers up 37-30 midway through the quarter.
The Lady War Eagles cut the deficit to three points three times and even two points once with 17 seconds left, but the Lady Tigers iced it with two made free throws from Chelsea Ulmer, who finished with 11 points.
