Lady Tigers squeak out win; Tigers beat Warriors by 10

By Brad Greer
‘Refuse to Lose’ is a time- honored sports slogan and one the South Panola Lady Tigers took to heart in its regular season finale’ at Senatobia Tuesday night.
Trailing by ten points with less than  five minutes remaining, the Lady Tigers reeled off a 14-3 run that was capped off by Tracie Benson’s game-winning basket with 16 seconds left to give South Panola a 61-60 victory before a jam packed crowd
Following two missed free throws by South Panola with eight seconds remaining, the Warriors had two shots to win but a three pointer at the buzzer clanged off the rim.
Freshman Takrya Webster ignited the South Panola rally with a pair of inside baskets  before Marshala Doyle, who led the Tigers with 16 points, reeled off seven straight points that cut into Senatobia’s lead down to one at 57-56 with 2:15 left to play.
Following a Senatobia turnover, Sydney Morgan gave South Panola a 59-58 lead on the following possession with 36 seconds remaining.
The Lady Warriors regained the lead  60-59 on the next series as Madison Nickens added a kiss off the glass  with 29 seconds showing on the clock before Benson put the dagger into Senatobia.
“I thought they did a great job of finishing the game and that is something we have talked about a lot but have not done in some games this season is finish strong,” said Lady Tiger head coach Jemmye Helms.
” We were down double digits there in the fourth quarter and couldn’t buy a bucket and sometimes we would trap and some we wouldn’t and there where times we could have given up but they  kept playing hard. We didn’t have any timeouts there at the end so I could not set anything up but the girls did a great job of staying focused throughout,” said Helms.
South Panola (10-13) took a slim 27-25 advantage at intermission and maintained its lead throughout the third quarter until Senatobia held the Tigers to one point over the final 3:11 to surge ahead 45-39. Tanajah Saulsberry led all scorers with 28 points.
The Tigers came out smoking in the first quarter by jumping out to a 9-3 lead before Senatobia counter punched  with a 8-2 spurt to leave the first quarter deadlocked at 11-11.
Sydney Morgan followed Doyle in scoring with 12 points while younger sister Chloe provided 10 points. Temmaye Williams added eight points on a pair of three pointers with Sedria Joy chipping in with six.
Webster and Benson contributed with four points each while Breanna Bland finished with three points.
” Maybe this win tonight will give us the spark we need heading into the district tournament next week,” said Helms.
South Panola enters the Region 2-6A tournament Tuesday at Columbus as the No.4 seed and will face No.1 seed Tupelo at 7 p.m.
The Lady Tiger Junior Varsity closed out their season on a positive note with a 22-13 victory behind six points each from Ty’Quera Victom and Ladayshia Robinson. Ke’Amber Jackson and Aziyah McGhee garnered four apiece with Webster scoring two points.
South Panola (boys)-56 Senatobia -46
Kendricus Carlton poured in a game-high 18 points to lead the Tigers to a varsity sweep.
South Panola (9-7) knocked down eight three pointers on the night as Ernest Sanford connected on three bombs from long range to finish the night with nine points.
Montray Blackburn added 12 points on a pair of three’s while Ketrell Key chipped in with 11 including eight in the second half. Talvyn Dean paced Senatobia (9-15) with 17 points.
The Tigers grabbed a early 9-2 advantage as Sanford and Key drained treys coupled with a Carlton basket. Senatobia quickly answered with a 9-0 spurt with Travis Tucker, a Tulane football signee, reeling off six straight points as the opening quarter ended in a 11-11 stalemate.
Both teams traded leads in the second quarter as Dean’s back-to-back baskets put the Warriors ahead 21-18 before Sanford canned a three-ball from the right side to tie the game at 21-21 with 3:41 remaining in the half.
South Panola took a slim 28-26 margin going into the halftime break on Blackburn’s three pointer.
The Tigers led 38-34 at the end of three quarters before slowly starting to pull away in the final period as Carlton and Key combined for 11 of 19 points in the stanza.
Terriance Jackson, Robert Hentz and Shaquille Jackson added two points each in the Tiger victory.
South Panola takes on host Columbus Tuesday afternoon at 5:30 in the district tournament.
Senatobia avoided the four-game sweep by taking the Junior Varsity boys game 23-22 as a potential game-winning shot by South Panola in the final seconds was negated despite a whistle  being blown.
Keith Cole led the way with seven points followed by Deronte Thomas with five. Jaylen Heffner chipped in with four points while Markevious Vaughn, Jerry Hubrins and Morris House finished with two points each.