STATESBORO — The fifth-seeded Richmond Hill Lady Cats (12-13) failed to exact retribution for the two losses they suffered to the fourth-seeded No. 23 Glynn Academy Lady Terrors (13-12) during the regular season by losing a third to send them home from the region tournament and killing their playoff hopes on Thursday night at Lee Hill Arena in Statesboro.
The Lady Cats failed to advance to the region semifinals of the Region 2-6A Tournament after falling to the Lady Terrors 49-44.
They came out hot, taking advantage of the Lady Terrors’ non-communicative defense which found them with a 15-5 lead after a quarter.
In the second quarter, the Lady Cats outscored the Lady Terrors and 11-7.
For a while the Lady Terrors we’re stuck at the seven point mark before getting their second set of points from Paris Smith.
“We really put the pressure on them and saw how the officials were calling the game,” Lady Cats Head Coach Sarah Jones said of the first half. “We took advantage and the girls really stuck to the gameplan and got some shots to fall and got to the free throw line but wasn’t able to convert and it came back to bite us a little bit.”
It all fell down for the Lady Cats in the second half.
First, Kayla Page trimmed the lead to seven after an elbow three.
Eventually, Paris Smith made it a one possession game from the charity stripe before the final eight minutes.
Alindria Dudley tied the game up at 37 after getting a steal from MaKiyah Matthews at half court.
The Lady Terrors took their first lead of the night thanks to a contact layup by Smith with three minutes left.
And they never looked back, closing out the Lady Cats to head on to the semis in Brunswick on Valentines Day.
“At halftime, we talked about how the game was far from over,” Jones said of the meltdown. “We knew they were going to go on a run so we talked about being able to withstand it. For a time period we did and we got ourselves in big time foul trouble. We couldn’t put together consecutive stops like we did in the first half to close it out. Tough one to take when they worked so hard.”
The loss eliminated the Lady Cats from Class 6A state tournament contention.
“I felt like we hit this rough patch there towards the end,” Jones said in a moment of reflection of the season. “But the last week-week and a half, we started getting on that right path. So we talked about at the end being able to take where we were and step it up and start there next year and be able to build on it and not hit that rough patch in the middle. But I’m super proud of the girls. I can’t say anything bad about their effort. They went out there and fought really hard and together.”
They finished the 2021-22 season one game under .500 at 12-13.