Andalusia girls beat Headland 54-34, to face Straughn in area title game

Those with trained basketball eyes could tell Andalusia’s Lady Bulldogs weren’t playing like they have been this season on Thursday night.

However, the Lady Bulldogs pulled through sickness and injury and beat Headland 54-34 in the semifinals of the Class 4A, Area 3 semifinals at home to solidify a spot in the sub regional round next week.

Andalusia’s Alison Daniels scored 16 points and had 11 rebounds for a double-double and Alexis Horton had 23 points to lead the Lady Bulldogs.

Daniels replaced starter Shi’Amber Townsend (neck) for the night and the Lady Bulldogs weren’t lacking on the defensive end.

“I thought Alison stepped it up real big with Shi’Amber being out,” Lady Bulldogs coach Bennie Shellhouse said. “She did real well.”

With this win, the Lady Bulldogs will play rival Straughn on Saturday night at 7 in the area championship. Additionally, AHS got its 23rd straight win of the season.

Andalusia got off to a good start, taking a 4-0 lead off of a Daniels’ jumper with 6:35 left in the first period.

The Lady Bulldogs went ahead 11-2 after Alectricia Barnes got a steal and found Alexis Horton on the other end on transition. Horton led all scorers with 23 points and five steals.

Headland’s Desiree Taylor got a trey and the Lady Rams trailed 13-5 late.

Late in the first period, the Lady Bulldogs weren’t doing much on the defensive end, allowing Headland the opportunity to pass the ball around without pressure.

Shellhouse said he didn’t like that at all.

“That’s not how we play and the game plan was for them (AHS) to give me two good quarters,” he said. “I didn’t care what the score was at the end of the second quarter or how tired they were.

“We looked a little sloppy. You could tell we hadn’t practiced together a whole lot this week with everybody being sick.”

Andalusia took a 16-7 lead when Daniels found Horton again on the other end, and led by 10 points at 18-8 after the first period.

The Lady Bulldogs (25-2) shot out to a 22-8 lead after a steal from Horton and pass to Latrexius Trawick.

The Lady Bulldogs went on to take a 25-10 after a Trawick 3-pointer and then led 31-14 on a Horton jumper.

Andalusia led 35-16 at half time and outscored the Lady Rams 17-5 in the third period, thanks to eight points from Daniels.

AHS got the chance to play most of their second-string on Thursday night, which Shellhouse said was good to see.

“We got a lot of our younger players in,” he said. “This is the part of the year where they don’t get an opportunity to play and we got them in.”

Shellhouse said this win at least gives his team two more games, but the focus will be squarely on Straughn today and tomorrow leading up to the game.

“We’ll get our game plan ready for Straughn (today) and just see what happens,” he said.

Barnes had eight points for the Lady Bulldogs. Tyleshia Malcolm had eight rebounds and Trawick had seven rebounds.

Headland’s Leigh Money had 11 points to lead the Lady Rams.