It started out good and it ended well for the T.R. Miller Lady Tiger basketball team Thursday night at Straughn High School in the class 3A sub-regional round of the AHSAA state playoffs, but it was what was in the middle that was the difference in the game.
Leading 3-0 to start the game and 5-4 at the 4:23 mark of the first quarter, the T.R. Miller Lady Tigers were held scoreless for the next 13:20 and the Straughn Lady Tigers used a 27-0 run to end T.R. Miller’s season with a 48-19 loss. T.R. Miller ended their season with a 4-18 record.
After leading 5-4 in the first quarter, Straughn ended the quarter on an 8-0 run to lead the Lady Tigers of T.R. Miller 12-5 after one quarter of play.
From there, Straughn outscored T.R. Miller 16-0 in the second quarter to increase their run to 24-0 and take a 28-5 lead at the halftime break.
In the third quarter, Straughn pushed their run to 27-0 as they took a 31-5 lead with 7:32 left in the quarter.
Lone T.R. Miller senior Lateysia Montgomery stopped their bleeding for T.R. Miller as she hit a 3-pointer at the 7:03 mark to end the run and cut the lead to 31-8. Montgomery led the Lady Tigers with 10 points.
Straughn went on to outscore T.R. Miller 13-5 in the quarter to hold a 41-10 lead heading into the final quarter of play.
In the fourth, T.R. Miller edged out Straughn 9-7, but Straughn easily cruised to the big win.
“We started off pretty good,” Lady Tiger head coach Ron Jackson said. “I think we were fired up and ready to play. As the game went on our inexperience began to show up. We have freshman, eighth graders, seventh grader, one eleventh grader and one twelfth grader. I think we did good. We could have did better, but in these kind of ballgames, you have to be there and see what is happening.”
While some may see the loss as a rout, Jackson looked at it different.
“We are learning right now,” he said of his young team. “We got better as the season went on. If we had played this game at the beginning of the year it would have probably been 80-0. But I am proud of the kids. They worked hard and got better which was a good thing.”
Along with Montgomery’s 10 points, Sha Nicholson finished with four points and O’Nesha Hall added three points. Emonea Curry chipped in two points in the loss.
Straughn had seven 3-pointers in the 29-point win.
T.R. Miller shot 2-for-4 from the free throw line in the loss while Straughn went 5-for-10.
With this victory, No. 9-ranked Straughn (30-2) will play in the Class 3A South Regional Tournament next week in Dothan. The Lady Tigers’ last appearance at the tournament was during the 1995-96 season.
SHS will face Abbeville at 3 p.m. on Thursday at the Dothan Civic Center for the semifinals of the regional tournament.