Faye Baker hopes the No. 2 next to Bradwell Institute’s name in the Class AAAAA state playoffs serves as a reminder for her Lady Tigers.
The Lady Tigers, who went 9-1 in Region 1-AAAAA regular season play and had not lost in a month, fell 56-49 to Ware County in the region championship Saturday night at Liberty County High School.
So instead of having the No. 1 seed – and playing perhaps as many as three straight state playoffs games at home – the Lady Tigers are guaranteed only one home game, and that’s against Eagles Landing.
“Hopefully this will wake us up and propel us to play better in the first round of the state playoffs,” Baker said after her team, ranked No. 4 in the state, slipped to 21-4. “You can’t show up in a Bradwell uniform and expect people to lay down.”
A 14-6 run in the second quarter gave the Lady Gators (19-7) a 29-21 lead, before Taniyah Bowman’s 3-pointer just before the buzzer.
Ware’s zone and the Lady Gators’ hot shooting led to a 13-4 spurt in the third quarter, pushing the lead to 44-30 before Bailey Gilmore connected on a 3.
“We just had to get in the zone and keep them out,” Lady Gators coach Mandy Lingenfelter said, “and make sure we had a hand on (Bowman) and double up on (Gilmore). And our girls just shot lights out. They showed up ready to play.”
Baker said she delivered a message to her team after the loss – a message reinforced by the scoreboard.
“They executed and beat us in all areas of the game, especially on the boards,” she said. “They killed us all night on the boards. When you don’t execute, that’s what’s going to happen. I know Ware County was going to come to play. I knew it was going to be a tough game. Because we didn’t do what we needed to do, that’s why we came up short.”
The Lady Gators led by as much as 17, 50-33, with 7:03 remaining before Bradwell began a comeback effort.
The Lady Tigers sliced the lead to six and a had a chance to cut it even further with two free throws. But a technical foul on the play – and the two missed free throws – turned into a four-point swing for Ware County.
“Basketball is a game of runs, and I knew we could come back,” Baker said. “It really hurt us when we got that technical. That was a momentum swing. But that was just one play. All night long, I felt Ware played the better ball.”
Lingenfelter, whose had lost by 19 and eight points to BI in the two regular-season meetings, knew the game was still in doubt, even with the big fourth-quarter lead.
“You’ve still got to keep going, because they’re the No. 1 team,” she said. “You can’t take your foot off the gas.”
Charlacia Jones had 14 points for the Lady Gators, Trea McClendon added 11 and Trinity Jenkins chipped in 10.
Bowman finished with 17 points and Gilmore added 15.
“Words can’t describe it,” Lingenfelter said of the win. “My girls have worked their butts off for 18 weeks. My girls kept the drive. We had some losses along the way, but losses build character.”