Lady Tigers advance to northwest regional finals

Caleb Suggs

Hartselle Enquirer

The atmosphere could not have been more electric at Wallace state community college for the semi finals of the northwest regionals. The Hartselle Tigers and the Athens Golden Eagles were set to face off for the third time this season. Athens got the best of the Tigers the first two times but this time Hartselle was looking for a completely different outcome. The Tigers had really been hitting their stride in the later part of the season and were playing very good ball.

Athens started the game off with a quick basket to go up 2-0 but Hartselle would answer with back to back Moriah Taylor three pointers to go up 6-2. Athens would cut the score to 6-5 but Hartselle would push it back to 11-5 with a Kayla Key three and two Anna Mathis free throws. Taylor would add two more three pointers to make the score 17-8. Athens would score 5 straight points to cut the score to 17-13. Mathis would complete a three point play just before the end of the first quarter to make the score 20-13 and the quarter would end with Hartselle holding on to a 20-15 lead.

Athens would get things going to start the second quarter. The Golden Eagles would start the quarter on a 6-0 run to take their first lead since the beginning of the game at 21-20. It wouldn’t last long though. Key would reel off seven points and Taylor would add another three as the Tigers went on a 10-1 run to close the quarter and took a 30-22 lead into halftime.

Anna Mathis would hit a three pointer to start the third quarter and give Hartselle a 33-22 lead. However, Athens would knock in six straight points to cut the score 33-28. The Golden Eagles would then proceed to turn up their full court press defense and would remain in it for the rest of the game. Despite this, Hartselle would score five straight points to make the score 5-0. The two teams would go back and forth until Lindsay Berry would knock in four points in the closing seconds to give Hartselle a 47-37 at the end of third quarter.

Things would begin to get interesting in the fourth quarter. Athens would begin to chip away at Hartselle’s lead. The Golden Eagles would cut it to 52-48 with about 3 and half minutes to play and then would cut it to 54-51. However, Hartselle wasn’t about to suffer a collapse. Mathis would knock in a basket to make the score 56-51 and then Key and Finn would knock in free throws to make it 59-51. At this point there wasn’t enough time left for Athens to come back and Hartselle would go on to win the game 61-53 and advance to the northwest regional finals to play the Austin Black Bears.