LFO enjoys a gym dandy of a night against Adairsville
The LFO Lady Warriors ran away and hid from visiting Adairsville this past Friday night, thumping the Lady Tigers from Bartow County, 67-42, on Senior Night.
LFO took an eight-point lead after the first quarter, but outscored the Lady Tigers in the second, 23-10, to take a commanding 38-17 lead at the break.
Angel Simmons scored 16 points to lead the way for the Lady Warriors. Christen Collins had 15, followed by eight from Ziara Thompson, seven by Christal Collins and six from Heidi Johnson.
Zoey Gray-martin added five points. Mylee Howard and Mercedes Thompson each finished with three, while Makia Mathews and Piper Brown both scored two.
LFO BOYS 72, ADAIRSVILLE 66
The Tigers began the nightcap by outscoring the Warriors by five in the opening stanza, only to see LFO light up the scoreboard for 26 points in the second quarter to take a 44-37 lead at halftime.
Apparently they lit up the scoreboard more than one of the scoreboards could handle.
An electrical issue knocked out one of the scoreboards and one of the shot clocks in LFO’S gymnasium prior to the second half beginning and, after attempts to fix it were unsuccessful, game administrators decided to play the second half in LFO’S old gymnasium.
After all the necessary equipment was brought into the old gym, along with all of the fans in attendance, the game eventually restarted around 10 p.m. and saw both teams go on runs in the third quarter.
Adairsville opened the period on a 7-2 spurt, only to see LFO counter with a 9-2 run and take a 55-46 lead. However, the Tigers came roaring back with eight consecutive points and, following an LFO turnover with 13 seconds left, Tre Winters got the shooters’ bounce on a 3-pointer at the buzzer as Adairsville pulled ahead, 59-57, going into the fourth quarter.
The Tigers added to their lead in the first two minutes of the fourth, forging a 64-59 lead and needing a victory to keep their hopes for the No. 1 seed in the region tournament intact.
The Warriors, however, were having none of it and closed out the game on a decisive 13-2 run.
Jackson Flanagan got free for his only bucket of the game with six minutes to go, cutting the Tigers’ lead down to three points. His basket jump-started a run of seven straight points that ended with a Brent Bowman trey that gave the Warriors a 66-64 lead with just over four minutes to go.
Back-to-back inside buckets by Jared Mitchell and Amani Burnett gave LFO some breathing room and, after an Adairsville miss, Burnett made a nice upand-under move in the paint to put the Warriors up 72-65 with 2:26 to go.
The lids on the baskets would close tightly shortly thereafter as neither team could get a shot to fall the rest of the way, save for one late Adairsville free throw. However, it was far too little, far too late for the Tigers as LFO picked up the win and secured the 6-AAA regular season title.
Bowman had 29 points and Amari Burnett went for 23 in the win. Mitchell had 10 points and Tyler Davis added eight.
With the win, LFO finished off a season-sweep of the Tigers and claimed the regular season region title, along with the No. 1 seed for the region tournament, which will be at LFO.