HATTIESBURG – Typically, the Hattiesburg Lady Tigers have only had to win one playoff game before advancing to Jackson to play in the 5A Quarterfinals. With the change in the playoff format, they’ll have to win two, and they got it started with a 55-34 second-round win over Laurel Friday night.
Hattiesburg has won the region title for five consecutive seasons, which meant a first-round bye and one win away from playing in the state tournament in Jackson. This is the first season that the quarterfinals aren’t played in Jackson, so the Lady Tigers will have to win two games to advance to the Big House for the fifth straight year.
“It does (feel strange),” Hattiesburg coach Caronica Jackson said. “You play another south team in the quarterfinal, unlike last year where you’re playing somebody from the north. You can host another game, so that’s a good thing. We’ll take it.”
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The Lady Tigers will host the Wayne County Lady War Eagles, who beat a one-loss Stone team Friday night, for the right to take a trip up Highway 49. The quarterfinal matchup is set for Monday at 7 p.m.
In Hattiesburg’s win on Friday, and to the displeasure of Jackson, the Lady Tigers came out of the gates wanting to establish the 3-point shot, but nothing was falling. Hattiesburg missed its first four shots, which were all 3-pointers, before junior Melyia Grayson scored the team’s first point. By that point, Laurel led 3-0, but Grayson scored eight straight points to start a 12-0 Hattiesburg run.
Instead of feeding Grayson down low, she hit two jumpers from the free throw line to get the scoring started, and the Lady Tigers ended the first quarter with the 16-5 lead.
In the second quarter, both teams began the frame ice cold. Near the end of the second, Laurel cut Hattiesburg’s lead to 18-11, but the Lady Tigers, led by Grayson, scored the final seven of nine points to go into the break with a 25-14 lead. Grayson scored five of those points, including an old-fashion 3-point play, to bring her total to 17 points after the first 16 minutes.
“I’m constantly banging it into their heads,” Jackson said. “‘Look, we have the advantage on the inside. We have to that early.’ Early, we didn’t. We took way too many 3s, then once we figured out we have to get the ball on the inside, we did a better job of it.”
Grayson finished the night with 24 points, 16 rebounds and four blocks to lead the Lady Tigers.
The Lady Tornadoes hung tough in the third quarter to keep it a 10-point, 30-20 game, but Hattiesburg finally woke up. At that point, Grayson had 20 of the team’s 30 points, and the Laurel defense was doing a good job of keeping it a close game.
“Just finish shots,” Jackson said of her team’s play at that point. “We were getting good looks, but we were just rushing. I told them in a timeout, we were playing like we were down 20.”
However, Laurel couldn’t turn good defense into good offense, and the Lady Tigers finally started to pull away. Junior Chelsea Ulmer made seven quick points to put Hattiesburg up 37-20 by the end of the third quarter, and Laurel couldn’t respond.
Those seven points were the only points for the point guard.
“She pushes so hard, and she has to learn how to balance,” Jackson said. “Know when to go hard and know when to slow it down.”
The two teams made the most points in the fourth quarter, but Hattiesburg pushed the lead to as many as 23 points late in the final frame to put the game out of reach for good.
“My exact (postgame) speech (to the team) was it wasn’t pretty at all, but we will take a win,” Jackson said. “I said, ‘Too many mistakes, unforced turnovers and things that will get you beat in Jackson.’ So, those are thing we can’t do down the stretch.”
