Chris Whitaker
CHULA — Tiftarea’s Clay Tapp drained a shot in the left corner as time expired to lift the Panthers to a 42-40 win against Southland Academy on Saturday.
Rolie Hancock scored with seven seconds left on a layup to tie the game; he finished with a game-high 20 points.
Jose Hernandez chipped in 16 points for Southland (8-14). Andres Charparo didn’t play after sustaining a non-game ankle injury on Saturday.
Wes Carter led three Panthers in double figures with 12 points, and Tapp had 10.
The Lady Raiders (10-14) lost to Tiftarea (21-1), 62-45.
Friday’s games
The Raiders (2-5 region) pulled themselves back in the region chase by beating the Knights, 66-54.
Jose Hernandez had a game-high 25 points and seven rebounds while Andres Charparo scored 18, and Rolie Hancock had 12.
Southland shot 51 percent for the game to avoid an earlier overtime loss to Calvary.
“It’s a great win for the seniors to go out on,” said Scott. “Everybody contributed. We haven’t had any consistency like this in terms of scoring. We must have balanced scoring like this to be successful. In basketball, you can’t take a night off.”
The Raiders can still finish third in the region and avoid the play-in game for the region tournament if Brookwood beats Calvary on Friday.
The Lady Raiders improved to 4-3 in region play with a 52-26 win against Calvary Christian.
Southland scored the first 10 points of the game and jumped out to a 19-2 lead.
Sara Schuster had 14 points and six steals, Sara Cathryn Parker scored 12 and had eight steals and five assists, and Caitlin Reid scored nine and grabbed 10 rebounds in their final game at home.
Southland shot 30 percent (23-77) for the game, but had 18 offensive rebounds.
“We did what we wanted to do,” said McDonald. “I guess due to the nature and what was going on pre-game, our kids played extremely well, at least with executing our defensive game plan, and we kept our fouls down. We had enough to produce a significant lead. We could put up fierce numbers if we finished a lot of shots. It was senior night, and the kids were hyped up and not in normal mode.”
Kelsey Harris led Calvary with 12 points.
