The Andalusia Lady Bulldogs put together a strong season, but were eliminated from playoff contention after falling to Booker T. Washington Magnet 45-25 in Saturday’s Class 4A South Regional semifinal contest in Dothan.

“I knew going into the game that the key wouldn’t our defense, but what we could do on offense,” Andalusia head coach Brad Garner said. “When you lose by 20 points and they still only scored 45 points, it really all boiled down to not being able to finish off shots.”

Both teams started the game applying full-court pressure, but the Lady Bulldogs were unable to capitalize on decent shot selections.

The Lady Bulldogs handled the defensive pressure well to start the game, but struggles getting the ball to fall led to Andalusia trailing 8-2 at the end of the first period.

Alex Crittenden got things started for the Lady Bulldogs by knocking down a deep 3-pointer that cut the deficit to 12-5.

Crittenden got a layup a few minutes later and the final points for Andalusia in the first half came from on a layup from Shalisa Thomas.

At halftime, the Lady Bulldogs trailed 23-9.

Destene Shakespeare picked up the pace for the Lady Bulldogs in the third period with 4 points.

Aaliyah Lawrence added a bucket after grabbing an offensive rebound, but the Lady Bulldogs were down 33-17 heading into the final period.

Lawrence pulled down another offensive board and followed it with a bucket to make the score 33-20 early in the fourth period.

Kat Finely played string music from downtown, and her 3-pointer cut the Booker T. Washington lead down to 35-23, but that was as close as they Lady Bulldogs would get.

“Early on, I really felt like we handled the pressure well,” Garner said. “We were able to break the press and get some easy shots, but we just couldn’t get anything to fall in. They probably had their best game since Christmas break and we had our worst. This is a bad time for that to happen. It all boiled down to us not being able to score. We stayed in transition defense all night. They did to us what we like to do to other teams.”

Crittenden led the Lady Bulldogs with 10 points, six rebounds and four steals.

“There is nothing that can take away from what these girls accomplished this year,” Garner said. “At the beginning of the year, there probably weren’t many people outside of our locker room that thought we would have made it this far. Our goal at the beginning of the year was to make the regional tournament because these girls knew that was a realistic goal. We won the area championship and we made it to regionals and we had a shot when we got there but it just didn’t work out that way.”