The youth of the team and the first game of the season caught up with the T.R. Miller Lady Tigers Monday night in the Choctawhatchee Thanksgiving Tournament as they started their season 0-1 with a 41-22 loss to the Fort Walton Beach Lady Vikings.
With the loss, the Lady Tigers were set to play Spanish Fort Tuesday at 5 p.m. back at Choctawhatchee. With a win Tuesday, the Lady Tigers would play at 4:30 p.m. for either fifth or sixth place in the eight-team tournament.
With a loss Tuesday, the Lady Tigers would play at 3 p.m. for seventh or eighth place.
The Lady Tigers fell in an early hole to the Lady Vikings of Fort Walton as they trailed 7-0 before getting their first points of the game at the 3:12 mark of the first quarter.
The Lady Tigers would go on an trail 12-5 after the first quarter and 21-11 at the half following a 9-6 advantage for the Lady Vikings in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, Fort Walton outscored the Lady Tigers 9-6 again to increase their lead to 30-17 heading into the fourth. In the fourth, the Lady Tigers were outscored 11-5 to take the loss by 19 points.
“Basically, we are a young team. We don’t have the experienced players that we need to go out there and beat a team of that kind of quality,” T.R. Miller Lady Tiger head coach Ron Jackson said after the loss. “I don’t know how many games they have played (FWB improved to 3-0 with the win over TRM), but that was our first ballgame of the year. I am really not upset about that first game. I expected it to be a tough ballgame. We did well in some areas, but there are certainly some things that we need to improve on. Their coach did an excellent job of coaching. She threw everything at us from a box-and-one to a triangle-and-two.”
“This was our first ballgame of the season and we are just trying to get our man-to-man defense down right. We are just trying to get two plays in so we can play in the this tournament. When we get a team like that later on in the season when we get seasoned and get some games under our belt, we will do much better than that. But right now, we are young and we have not played enough to beat a good team like that this early in the season.”
Fort Walton used an 8-0 run in the second quarter to take an 18-5 lead over T.R. Miller with 3:29 left before the half.
In the third quarter, T.R. Miller cut the lead to six points, 21-15, with 5:41 left in the quarter. After cutting the lead to 25-17 with 2:26 left in the quarter, T.R. Miller fell to a 12-0 run to fall behind 37-17 with 1:51 left in the game.
After the Lady Tigers cut the lead to six early in the third quarter, Fort Walton outscored T.R. Miller 20-7 to end the game.
Leah Brundidge led the Lady Tigers with 10 points while LaTeysia Montgomery had seven. Shakera Nicholson added four points while O’Nesha Hall had one point.
T.R. Miller shot 2-for-8 from the free throw line while Fort Walton was 10-for-21.
The Lady Tigers will be back in action Tuesday at home as they on Atmore. Game time is set for 4:30 p.m.