By Bart Moss

For the FCT

Red Bay’s 2A state title defense seemed to be going in the right direction Friday as the Lady Tigers took an eight-point lead over Tanner early in the third quarter. Not long after that, however, things took a turn for the worse for the Tigers. Red Bay went cold – really cold. Red Bay went on an eight-minute scoring drought.  Tanner went on a 21-2 run over 11 minutes to dash the Tigers’ hope of another state championship, defeating them 53-37.

“It hurts,” said Red Bay Coach Donnie Roberts. “We took some bad shots and too many turnovers at critical times. We just had a bad day.”

Red Bay made 12 of 32 shots from the field and turned the ball over 16 times against a quick Tanner defense.

“It was just one of those days offensively when things didn’t go our way,” said Roberts. “I thought we played well enough to win defensively. They made some adjustments to our offense, doubling down on Darby and really giving her a hard time inside in the second half.”

Red Bay led Tanner 12-8 at the end of the first quarter and 21-18 at halftime. The start of Tanner’s run began late in the third quarter. The Rattlers led Red Bay 29-28 going into the fourth quarter. Tanner, however, dominated the fourth quarter, outscoring Red Bay 24-9 to take the win.

Darby Madden and Allie Kennedy led Red Bay with 13 points each. Hope Cook and Morgan Pierce had five points each. Holly Hardin added one point for the Tigers.