In a hard-fought, defensive struggle, the No. 6 Dadeville Tigers punched their ticket to Alabama State with a 50-45 win against Southside-Selma Friday at DHS.

Dadeville (21-5) will take on Livingston or Calera Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.

The Panthers took their first lead of the fourth quarter with 3:06 to play on a bucket by Desmond Moore that made the score 45-44.

Zeke Heard tied things up with a free throw at the 2:14 mark, and the Tigers went on top with a Kieran Sturdivant tip-in with 1:03 to play.

The Tigers defense then forced a jump-ball situation, which gave them possession, but Dadeville turned it over with 21 seconds left.

The Panthers missed a 3 that would have put them ahead and were forced to foul, but Heard could only connect on 1 of 2 free throws with 14 seconds

to play.

Southside-Selma missed a game-tying 3-pointer from the top of the key, and Terry Toler sealed the win with two foul shots.

Dadeville will be making their second straight trip to the regional tournament.

“Last year, Zeke was out, Darrion (Hutcherson) was hurt and Toler had a big burden on him as a freshman,” said head coach Rodney Taylor. “We were inexperienced and going up against the No. 1 team.

“This time, we’ve got a lot of guys back and we have several people carrying the load. We cut down the nets (after the sub-regional win) last year, but we didn’t (Friday) because we don’t want this to be the pinnacle. We want to keep going.

Heard (14 points, 12 rebounds) and Sturdivant (16 and 10) both recorded double-doubles for Dadeville.

The Tigers closed the first quarter on a 12-0 run, getting five points from Sturdivant and four from Hutcherson, to lead 15-5.

But behind Sammarkus Jones and Devante Richardson, the Panthers would come back. Richardson buried three of his six treys in the period, and Jones added six points, including a putback with six seconds left, to tie the game at 24-24 at halftime.

With the score knotted at 28, Heard scored Dadeville’s next seven points, and it was 35-30 with 2:29 on the clock. Richardson, however, sank two 3-pointers and hit all three free throws with 1:06 left to put the Panthers up by two.

Heard’s acrobatic lay-up with 29 seconds left tied the game at 39-39 entering the fourth.

Dadeville held Southside to just two Moore free throws in the first 4:12 of the fourth, but the Tigers could only manage five points during that span.

“(Southside) likes to shoot the three and (Richardson) got hot a couple times,” Taylor said. ³But we just wanted to keep it close until the fourth, then really start denying him the ball. We didn’t let him score in the last quarter, and that was big for us.

“We were patient on offense. We tried to milk the clock, get some backdoor cuts and score off the dribble.

Toler had seven points for Dadeville, Hutcherson chipped in six and Ladarius Wilkerson finished with 11 rebounds.

Richardson ended up with 21 for the Panthers, while Jones poured in 10.