By By BRUCE HIXON Sports Editor
In all his years of coaching, T.R. Miller Lady Tigers basketball coach Ron Jackson has probably not seen a more bizarre first half than the one his team had in its 54-44 loss to the Selma Lady Saints in Saturday's Greenville Tournament semifinal game.
Anything that could go wrong for the Lady Tigers did in the first quarter when Selma stormed out to a 30-14 lead.
During that time T.R. Miller was unable to stop Selma's Santana Say, who collected 10 of her 17 points in that quarter via five field goals.
"Selma has a good team and they shot the ball real well from outside. At the same time you have to be focused at the start of the game and we weren't," Jackson said. "We gave up 30 points in a quarter. There have been several times where we haven't given up 30 points for a game."
While the 30 points T.R. Miller allowed in the first quarter was strange by itself, it became even stranger when the Lady Tigers gave up just two points in the second period.
Despite the 180-degree in turnaround in defense, T.R. Miller was uanble to make much of a dent into Selma's lead. Two baskets by Ashley Samuel were all the Lady Tigers able to generate, as they pulled within 32-18 at half-time.
T.R. Miller (2-1) continued to whittle away at the Lady Saints' advantage in the third quarter, as four buckets by Samuel and two hoops by Joy McCorvey narrowed the deficit to just 41-32.
Selma's lead melted all the way to three points in the fourth quarter and T.R. Miller had several chances to get even closer.
"When the lead was three points, we had five chances to get even closer with layup opportunities and we missed every one," Jackson said.
Selma finally regrouped and some late free throws pushed the final margin back into double digits.
Samuel led T.R. Miller with 20 points, while McCorvey added 16. However, the Lady Tigers got just eight more points from the rest of their lineup.
"We need to get more people involved in our offense besides Ashley and Joy," Jackson said.
T.R. Miller travels to Andalusia Friday.
At Greenville
Selma 30 2 9 13 – 54
T.R. Miller 14 4 14 12 – 44
SELMA (2FG-3FG-FT-TP) Say 5-0-7-17; Green 3-0-5-11; Simpon 4-0-0-8; Wilson 4-0-0-8; Lumpkin 1-1-2-7; Dozire 1-0-0-2 (Totals: 18-1-15-54)
T.R. MILLER (2FG-3FG-FT-TP) Samuel 7-1-3-20; McCorvey 8-0-0-16; Lane 1-0-2-4; Fountain 0-1-0-3; Smith 0-0-1-1 (Totals: 16-2-6-44)