Lone T.R. Miller Lady Tiger senior basketball player Lateysia Montgomery made sure her last high school basketball game was not going to happen Thursday night in the area tournament at Cottage Hill as she poured in 21 points to help T.R. Miller pull an upset win over Bayside Academy 36-33 in overtime.
The win for the Lady Tigers over Bayside Academy was their first this season and improved them to 4-16. The win puts T.R. Miller in the area finals Saturday against Cottage Hill. Game time is set for 3 p.m. in Mobile. Cottage Hill defeated W.S. Neal 48-30 Thursday night.
Also with the win Thursday, T.R. Miller will now advance to the sub-regional round of the playoffs as either the area champion or the area runner-up. If T.R. Miller falls to Cottage Hill Saturday in the area championship, they will travel to the area 2 champion. With a win in the area finals, T.R. Miller will host the area 2 runner-up.
The area 2 at tournament was set to begin Friday night at Straughn High School.
Southside-Selma was to take on Opp while No. 1 seed Straughn was to play Excel. The area final is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 11 at 5:30 p.m.
In the game Thursday, T.R. Miller led Bayside 9-5 after one quarter and 19-9 at the half after outscoring the Lady Admirals 10-4 in the second quarter.
Bayside began erasing T.R. Miller’s lead in the third quarter as they outscored the Lady Tigers 7-2 to cut the lead to 21-16 heading into the fourth.
In the fourth, Bayside outscored T.R. Miller 15-10 to tie the game at 31-all at the end of regulation.
In the overtime period, the Lady Tigers pulled away 5-2 to stun Bayside to get the win by three and advance to the championship game.
Along with Montgomery’s 21 points, O’Nesha Hall, Mekia Williams, and Sha Nicholson all had four points each while Steely Ruzic had three points.
T.R. Miller’s boys were to play their area tournament game Friday night at Bayside Academy against the Admirals. See Wednesday’s paper for a complete game recap.