In a game that initially seemed like a blowout, it came down to the wire, as the No. 9 Selma Lady Saints held on to defeat the Demopolis Lady Tigers 37-27 Saturday at Wallace Community College-Selma to win the Class 5A Area 5 championship.

Anthony Harris, head coach of the Lady Saints (24-3), said he’s grateful for the win, but his team has some work to do heading into the sub-regional playoffs next week.

“To be honest, we looked real bad going down the stretch,” Harris said. “We gave up some big shots. We did enough to get by. Down the road, we’ve got to do better than that. We were fortunate tonight to get out of here with the win. I appreciate the win, but we’ve got to get back to work.”

The Lady Saints were ahead 23-9 with 3:48 left in the third, but Demopolis closed the quarter by outscoring Selma 9-4 to make it a 27-18 game going into the final quarter.

The Lady Tigers continued their run, as Megan Smith drained a 3-pointer to make it a 27-21 game with 7:12 left to play.

Selma responded, as Kendra McCovery stole a Lady Tigers’ pass a scored a fast-break layup to extend Selma’s lead to 29-21 with 5:45 left.

The Lady Tigers got four straight points from Jonniece Collins to make the score 29-25 with 3:41 left.

Demopolis forced a turnover after Selma ran the clock down, but Corneisha Perkins missed a three-point attempt that would have made it a one-point game, and the Lady Tigers were forced to foul and send Selma’s Jonishia Jackson to the line.

Jackson hit her first free throw to make it 30-25 with 0:50 left.