Pleasant Home’s Erica Bullard led the Lady Eagles with 16 points in her team’s 44-25 area victory over Florala on Friday night.

The Lady Eagles jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the first period, and outscored the Lady Wildcats 8-4 in the second period to take a 23-11 lead at half time.

“We felt very happy to get the win playing no better than we did offensively,” PHS coach Kelley Garner said. “We missed a lot of open looks at the basket. We have played a lot better, and we’re just happy to get a win.”

Florala was without its star player in Paige Irwin, who suffered an ankle sprain during her team’s area win over Kinston on Tuesday night.

However, the Wildcats stayed in it with the help of Mariah Thompson, who led FHS with 14 points.

“I thought we fought hard,” FHS coach Phillip Smith said. “We fought for four quarters.

“(Mariah) did a have a good game,” he said. “We certinaly had four other girls that stepped up for us. Lynsdee (Edwards), Hailey (Maxey), Keadra (Avan), and Sami (Hammac) all stepped up to try to take over what Paige left off. Pleasant Home has a great ball team.”

Thompson’s 3-pointer at the buzzer to end the first period cut Pleasant Home’s lead to 15-7.

The Lady Eagles came out of half time, and outscored the Lady Wildcats 8-7 in the third period and 13-7 in the fourth period for the win.

Raven Woods had 10 points; Abigail Kelley had seven points; Kendra Bryan and Mary Schwartz had four points each for the Lady Eagles.

Edwards had eight points for FHS.

The Lady Eagles improve to 5-4 overall, and 1-1 in Class 1A, Area 2. FHS falls to 4-6, 1-1.

During the early part of the contest, Pleasant Home’s Emily Byrd went down hard on her right shoulder. After the game, she went to the hospital for X-rays. No more information was available when The Star-News went to press on Friday night.

The Lady Eagles will host Kinston, and Florala will host Geneva County on Tuesday night to continue in area action.