Lady Eagles secure hosting rights to Region 2-5A tournament with 63-41 win at Veterans

KATHLEEN — Late in the regular season when region tournament seeds and locations are often already determined, it can be hard to point to an external reason teams play for.

But Thursday’s make-up game between Northside (14-10, 5-4 Region 2-5A) and Veterans (8-16, 3-7 Region) actually meant something — the chance to host the play-in portion of the Region 2-5A tournament.

It’s not as glorious as being region champion favorites or getting a play-in bye, but the Lady Eagles 63-41 win at The Hangar is meaningful for a lot of teams, including Veterans.

“It’s for us because it would’ve been between…us and [Thomas County Central]. To go down to TCC three hours away instead of being at home, that’s a huge deal,” Northside head coach ChoRhonda Gwaltney-Harris said. “I think our county would rather play at my place than go down there. I think it’s big for a lot of us.”

“To me that gives Veterans an advantage, they’re gonna have to play against TCC in the [four versus five seed] game, and so they’ll go around the corner instead of down the street,” She continued. “It’s for my boys [Northside] because they’re fighting at the bottom right now, the four or five [seed], they’re fighting hard…I think all of us are a different beast at home, so we’re excited about it and we’re glad We could do it.”

It was a long shot for the Lady Warhawks, who had to beat Northside by at least 27 points and hope they lose on Saturday against Thomas County Central, but they battled nonetheless.

It was an even effort in the first two minutes. Both clubs set their focus on getting to the basket and it netted each of them several trips to the free throw line.

Five whistles went off in the first two minutes of the game and there was no real separation until the third minute had passed.

Two consecutive over-and-back violations on Veterans fed the Lady Eagles’ defensive pressure, which earned them an 8-0 run and 17-8 lead to end the first quarter.

The Lady ‘Hawks opened the second quarter with their own 8-0 run and a quick exchange of short scoring spurts ensued.

For the next 90 seconds Northside scored five straight, and by the time halftime came around Veterans cut their deficit to 30-26.

The question of who would host the play-in didn’t go unanswered for too much longer.

The Lady Eagles scored seven straight out of halftime and ended the third quarter up 54-34 after a 24-8 run in those eight minutes.

They forced the turnovers, got the transition baskets and beat Veterans in the half court. Compared to Tuesday’s game against Lee County the offense looked completely different.

“We were just steady tonight. We’re turnover-keen, but we made them turn the ball over,” Gwaltney-Harris said. “If we can turn them over and keep our turnovers down then we’re pretty decent. We played hard tonight, put 61 points on the board. We’re trying some different lineups, trying some different things going into the tournament here, so just hoping to get better and play harder than what we been playing.”

UP NEXT

Northside has one last game in the regular season, Feb. 6 at Thomas County Central at 6 p.m., and they will host the Region 2-5A play-in games on Feb. 10. Times are to be announced.

Veterans will shift their focus to the postseason, including the play-in on Feb. 10.