The game started more like a NASCAR race than a basketball game, but Southside kept the pressure on longer en route to a 61-33 win over Bibb County Thursday night.

“The defense is our bread and butter,” Southside coach April O’Neal said. “If we play defense like we did tonight, we are gonna be able to win some games here in the postseason.”

The Lady Panthers ran their way out to a 23-14 lead after the end of the first quarter, overcoming sloppy play and a lot of fouls along the way.

The two tied in the second quarter, with much of the scoring being done from the foul line with the Lady Choctaws.

In the second half, the Lady Panthers were able to finally find a groove after some adjustments by O’Neal.

“I really just stuck with the five girls who were doing what we needed to do defensively,” O’Neal said. “I was subbing girls in and out and we were getting good effort, but just not playing smart on defense.”

Africa Tyler led the Lady Panthers with 13 points and 12 rebounds.

Southside will face their regional rival Dallas County in the final at 5 p.m. Saturday.

“It’s always a big game when we play DCHS,” O’Neal said. “We are gonna have to come out and play well. It’s going to be a fight, but if we play smart defense we should be ok.”

Hornets move on to tournament final

Dallas County High School started slowly to begin both halves, but gathered strength when the game went on en route to a 52-30 wins over Jemison.

The Lady Hornets were able to use good defense and speed to pull away.

“We started real slow,” Dallas County Coach Charles Thompson said. “But we made some adjustments on defense and were able to turn it up a little bit.”

The two teams started pretty evenly matched, and the Lady Panthers even jumped out to a 10-4 lead before Dallas County came back to end the quarter tied at 12.

It was the second quarter that the Lady Hornets got going and pulled out to a 24-15 lead on the strength of their press defense which forced turnovers, leading to easy points.

“We just weren’t able to answer in the second quarter,” Jemison coach Stacy McGehee said. “Between that and missed opportunities in the third quarter, we fell behind and their team speed took over from there.”

Thompson said getting the win was good, but he would need more constancy moving forward to have continued success in the play-offs.

“It’s a new season,” Thompson said. “We can’t rely on what we have done. We need to go out there each night and execute. We are practicing tomorrow.”

The win takes a little bit of pressure off of the Hornets, but Thompson said there is a new pressure to get to host a sub-regional.

The Lady Hornets will play against Southside Saturday night at 5 p.m. in the class AAAA area 6 tournament final.