By By Marty Stamper/The Meridian Star
Saturday, Dec. 2, 2000
DECATUR West Lauderdale and Forest will battle for the girls' championship of the Central Mississippi Classic tonight at 7 p.m. after taking semifinal wins in Friday's action at East Central Community College.
Neshoba Central and Lake play for third place at 4 p.m. after Newton County and Newton settle fifth place at 1.
West Lauderdale girls 52, Lake 48: The Lady Knights got 14 points apiece from J.J. Huggins and Kristina Gardner to get past Lake and advance to tonight's championship game with their four-point winners' bracket victory.
Lake led 9-7 after one period and scored the last six points of the first half to take a 26-20 lead into intermission.
West, 9-3, took a 33-28 lead midway into the third quarter and held the upper hand until Lake's Kim Cox buried a 3-pointer with 3:27 left in the game to put the Lady Hornets up 44-42. After West's Julie McCrory and Lake's Odena Cox swapped 3-pointers, Gardner put the Lady Knights up 45-44 with a 3-pointer from the left corner with 2:50 left.
The Lady Knights then scored five straight points to go up 50-44 with 29.6 seconds remaining.
Lake closed to within 50-47 on a 3-pointer by Odena Cox with 17 seconds left, but Huggins made a pair of free throws with five seconds left to seal the win.
West also got eight points each from McCrory and Lloyd.
Lake, 5-1, got 14 points from Kimyatta Viverette, 11 from Roxana Rogers, and eight from Odena Cox.
Forest girls 62, Neshoba Central 54: The defending Class 3A state runner-up Lady Bearcats jumped out to a 14-4 first quarter lead and went up 25-10 in the second quarter before Neshoba got to within 32-23 by halftime of the winners' bracket contest.
Forest, 6-4, then pulled out to a 42-23 lead in the third quarter off Lady Rocket turnovers.
Neshoba, 5-3, fought back to within 59-50 but was unable to complete the comeback.
Patsy McKee led Forest with 23 points, 10 of which came in the first quarter. Kelly Boutwell scored 13, Sophia Gray had 11, and Latrice Spivey tossed in 10.
Tausha Evans led Neshoba with 26 points that included a 16-of-16 showing at the free-throw line. Miranda Rosar tossed in 13.
Newton County girls 48, Scott Central 46: Kristin Chaney scored 16 points and Tamekia Foley had 14 to lead Newton County in the losers' bracket game.
The Lady Cougars, 10-1, trailed 19-15 at the end of the first quarter, but rallied to take a 26-25 lead into halftime. The game was tied at 34-34 by the end of the third period.
April Bufkin and Yolanda Johnson both had six points for the Lady Cougars.
Britney Burkes led Scott, 8-3, with 29 points. Katie Nickson scored 11 and Marquita Anderson added six.
Newton girls 46, South Leake 39: The Lady Tigers outscored South Leake 16-12 in the first quarter and 13-7 in the third in taking the losers' bracket win over South Leake.
Newton led 19-16 at halftime.
Newton, 6-3, got 16 points from Creoshia Williams and nine each from Roslyn Hardy and Kotreece Bender.
South Leake, 8-5, got a 21-point effort from Monique Overstreet.