COTTONDALE – The Graceville Lady Tigers held off a late Cottondale charge Friday night to take a 39-32 win in the District 3-1A tournament semifinals.
With the win, Graceville advanced to Saturday’s district title game against Ponce De Leon, while the Lady Hornets had their season come to an end.
The Lady Tigers dominated at the start, jumping out to a 15-1 lead in the first quarter and not allowing a Cottondale basket until Deunna Gonzalez converted a lay-up with 6:46 left in the second period.
Graceville continued its surge to take a 24-9 lead into the halftime break and maintained a 17-point edge late into the third period.
But a 9-3 run by the Lady Hornets to close the quarter cut the margin to 11 after a basket by Brooklyne Brown, and a 3-pointer and two driving finishes by Khadejah Ward to make it 29-18.
Brown scored again to start the fourth, and Aaliyah Blount had a steal and a lay-up to cut the lead to 29-22 just 34 seconds into the final period.
Jordan Lane scored for Graceville to break up the run, but Kourtnie Richardson answered with a long jumper to make it 31-24.
A bank shot and an offensive put-back by Zay Henderson pushed the lead back to 10 at 36-26 for the Lady Tigers with three minutes to play.
Ward got it back to single digits with another driving lay-up, but the Lady Hornets were unable to convert their next few scoring opportunities until another bucket by Ward with 43 seconds to play made it 36-30.
Graceville missed consecutive front ends of one-and-ones, but the Lady Hornets were unable to take advantage.
Blount cut the lead to four at 36-32 with two free throws with 12.5 seconds left, but Tiara Sorey made two foul shots with 9.1 seconds to play to put the game away.
Sorey had 11 points to lead Graceville, while Shanice Mack had nine, and Lane and Henderson six each.
Ward finished with 16 points for the Lady Hornets, while Brown had six.
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