In a game that started close, the Southside High School Lady Panthers turned up the heat on defense and used selective shooting in the second half to cruise to a 54-39 win over Dadeville at home.

Dadeville’s height inside gave Southside problems to open the game. The Lady Panthers found the baskets few and far between despite getting looks. Head coach April O’Neal said Dadeville’s Rae Williams presented problems early on keeping the Lady Tigers to within a 13-11 deficit by the end of the first period.

“Their tall girl (Williams) was making it tough for us so we had to make some adjustments,” she said. “We weren’t getting the job done. We were playing hard, but we just weren’t getting points.”

Minor adjustments in the second period began to make a difference. After Dadeville came back to take the lead 19-17 on a Williams jump shot with 4:46 left in the half.

At that point, the Lady Panthers caught fire. Africa Tyler, who lead the Lady Panthers will 18 points and 21 rebounds, and Lashunda Greeter, who followed with 10 points, started connecting and lead Southside on a 31-2 run to give Southside a 31-21 lead at the half.

In the third period, the Lady Panthers were absolutely dominant holding Dadeville scoreless and adding 8 points themselves to stretch the lead to 39-21 by the end of the third.

While defense was the story of the period, O’Neal said patience on offense was also a factor.

“They started to get more patient heading down the stretch,” she said. “Our shooting game was not what it normally is tonight. We usually hit a lot more threes, but we just had a bad shooting night. I told them to just be patient.”

The Lady Panthers strong defensive performance continued as they held Dadeville scoreless in the second half until Destiny Green hit a shot with 5:48 remaining to pull the Lady Tigers to within a 43-23 score.

Southside emptied the bench and controlled the ball to hang on to the lead.

Southsideis now 17-7 on the season.

Dadeville ended the season at 8-18.