The Lady Panthers of Yazoo County earned a ticket to both the second round of the regional tournament and the next round with their 49-41 victory over Ruleville Central on Tuesday.
Yazoo County girls basketball coach Patrick Nutter thought Tuesday night’s game was a testament to his team’s determination
“We did a much better job of closing,” Nutter said. “We did a good job on defense. I saw good effort all night. We just simply didn’t want to lose that game.”
The Lady Panthers started out the game with a 5-1 run thanks to a layup from Jalena Allen and a layup and free throw by Deja Moore.
But the Lady Tigers refused to give up. They stormed back with a 9-0 run to take a 10-5 lead.
Yazoo County fought and quickly closed the gap with two layups from Allen and Moore.
With 0:45 remaining in the first quarter, Moore held the ball near half court to run the clock dow for a final shot, and with that final shot, she drained a cold-blooded 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Lady Panthers a 12-10 lead.
Quick jumpers by Destiny Epps in the second quarter put the Lady Panthers up 16-10 before Ruleville hit a 3-pointer and a layup to make it a 16-15 game.
Layups from both teams put the Lady Panthers up 18-17 at the half.
Yazoo County began the third quarter with a 7-3 run to push their lead to 25-20.
For the remainder of the third quarter, Yazoo County and Ruleville Central exchanged layups until the end, where the Lady Panthers nailed a short jumper to take 35-27 lead into the fourth quarter.
Down eight points heading into the fourth quarter, Ruleville had some ground to make up quickly, but for every shot they made, the Lady Panthers were there to respond.
The Lady Tigers were forced to foul to stop the clock, but the Lady Panthers hit their free throws.
The scoring was an even 14-14 in the fourth quarter, and Yazoo County took the game 49-41.
Deja Moore had a team-high 22 points in the do-or-die game.
Nutter believes Moore is a consistent 3-point shot away from being a truly elite player.
“Deja plays to her temperament,” Nutter said. “She’s a very emotional player. She plays hard all the time. Her biggest problem is that she doesn’t have an outside shot. If she had an outside shot, she could be something else. She can hit one, but she isn’t consistent with them.”
Senior Jalena Allen was second on the team with 12 points in the victory.
Destiny Epps rounded out the to three in scoring with eight points.
The Lady Panthers fell to Velma Jackson on Thursday night.
