By Angie Ledbetter
and Brad Greer

The South Panola Tigers hosted a team of slam dunkers Friday night as the Starkville Yellow Jackets came to town but were sent home with a 45-41 loss.

The Yellow Jackets were ranked #1 in the division, #5 in 5A and #7 in the Super 10 poll.

“I told the guys in the locker room that had to be the best basketball win since I’ve been at South Panola,” said Coach Charlie Howard. “To beat a team like that who is ranked among the best in the state. We played them tough at their place and they only beat us by four points. Our guys felt pretty good tonight. Our goal tonight was to make them an outside shooting team and they shot it decently. We knew they could score if they got it around the basket because we couldn’t match them in size.”

“It was a dunk fest in the first half of the game but they got zero dunks in the second half. I told them at the half to limit them to zero dunks, take care of the basketball, make it a low scoring ballgame and we would have a chance. It was a low scoring game and we won it.”

“That puts us second in the division because they’re in first place. We’ll play Tupelo Tuesday night at 8:30.”

Rico Keys scored 26 points hitting six three-pointers and was 2 of 3 from the free throw line. Quen Robinson scored 10 points and was 2 of 2 from free throw line. Antonio Jones scored 6, James Spraggins 3 and Kerrion Moore 2.

Scoring for the Yellow Jackets was Jeff Jernagin with 16 points making 8 of 10 from two point range. Rashad Perkins scored 8 and Bryce Brown 7.

The Yellow Jackets started the game with a show of slam dunking in the first half with Jernagin slam dunking it 6 times and Perkins 3 times. The Tigers put up a fight as Keys added his 3 three pointers in the first half and Robinson added a 3 pointer. At the half, the Yellow Jackets were up 25-20.

The Tigers came out in the third quarter and shut down the slam dunking contest by the Yellow Jackets and only allowed them to score 5 points to their 10. The game was tied at 30 at the end of the third.

The fourth quarter went to the Tigers as they out scored the Yellow Jackets 15-10. Keys hit his fifth 3 pointer of the night and the Tigers took a 33-32 lead with 6:18 left in the game. Keys added another 3 pointer a few minutes later putting the Tigers up 36-32. With 2:14 on the clock, Keys made a layup putting score at 41-34. Spraggins made a baseline layup with 18 seconds left in the game putting the Tigers up 43-41. Robinson stole the ball with 3.1 seconds.  He went to the free throw line after being fouled with 1.2 seconds and made both free throw shots giving the Tigers the 45-41 victory