Lady Tigers win in OT thiller

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Dee Gantt was a force inside for the Lady Tigers.

Dee Gantt was a force inside for the Lady Tigers.

The Straughn Lady Tigers picked up a 39-36 overtime win over the Carroll Lady Eagles Monday night in Straughn.

The game went back-and-forth from the moment it tipped off, and at the end of the first period the score was tied 8-8.

Dee Gantt made her presence felt early on tieing the game up 6-6 with a perfect trip to free-throw line and then converting a layup following a steal to put the Lady Tigers up 8-6.

The Lady Eagles knotted the game up 8-8 just before the end of the first period.

Carroll took an early lead to start the second period with a pair of free throws, but Gantt tied the game up on the other end with an offensive board and a layup.

The Lady Tigers then got a steal, and a quick pass to Brentley Armstrong under the basket put Straughn up 12-10.

Carroll got a short rally started and went up 17-13 midway through the second period.

Gantt trimmed the Lady Eagles’ lead down to 17-15 with a layup and then Sydney Kinsaul made it a 1-point game with a free throw.

Kinsaul missed the second free throw, but Gantt corralled the rebound and put it back up to give the Lady Tigers an 18-17 lead with 3:26 left to go in the first half.

Straughn’s next time down the court, Gantt made another trip to the free-throw line, and a 1-for-2 effort put the Lady Tigers on top 19-17.

As time was winding down in the second period, Carroll buried a long jumper to tie the game 19-19 at halftime.

Baylee Wilson got the Lady Tigers off to a strong start in the third period with a 3-pointer to put Straughn on top 22-19.

After a steal, Armstrong dished a pass down low to Harley Adcock, who finished it with a layup.

The Lady Tigers continued the hot start to the period when Sarah Kate Shiver knocked down a bucket in the middle of the lane off an assist from Wilson.

The Lady Eagles then picked up a pair of baskets at the end of the third, but the Lady Tigers held a 26-23 lead.

Starting off the fourth period, Gantt muscled away steal from a Lady Eagle player under her own basket and went straight up for the bucket to put the Lady Tigers up 28-23.

Two-straight baskets from the Lady Eagles then cut the Lady Tigers’ advantage down to 1-point, and then another small run put Carroll on top 31-30 with 2:17 left in the game.

Wilson then responded by burying another 3-pointer to give the lead back to the Lady Tigers with 1:59 left in the game.

After missed shots from both squads, the Lady Eagles got a layup with to the tie the game 33-33 with just 49 seconds left in regulation, sending the game into overtime.

The Lady Eagles got the first basket of over time, but Gantt quickly tied the contest back up with a steal and layup.

After a pair of missed free throws from the Lady Eagles, Gantt put the Lady Tigers back on top for good with a goal under the basket.

Carroll trimmed the lead back down to 1-point with 1:03 left, but then a perfect trip to the free throw line from Armstrong with 15 seconds left gave the Lady Tigers a 39-36 victory.

Gantt led the Lady Tigers with 18 points on the evening.

“We beat a really good team tonight,” Lady Tigers head coach Scott Kinsaul said. “I was pleased with the way we played, but I was not pleased with some of the mistakes we made. I was very proud of them overall.”

On the thing the Lady Tigers have had trouble with is defending the post, but Kinsaul said that wasn’t the case in Monday’s victory.

“I really thought we defended the post very well tonight,” he said. “That was something we didn’t do to well against Pleasant Home, but I liked how we played tonight and I thought we did a good job of rebounding.”