By Steve Carter/News Editor
TIFTON — For the lack of a better term, the first 28 minutes of the 32-minute basketball game between the Tift County Lady Devils and the Turner County Lady Rebels were...well, boring, Saturday night.
But the final four minutes made up for it as the teams went through nine lead changes and eight ties. The game was not decided until there was 1.9 seconds left, when Tift’s Jasmine Randall took a charge from Turner’s T’Keyah Chevers. The ball went in, and one official had signaled Randall with the foul, but another overruled him and gave the foul to Chevers.
The score was 48-46 at that point in favor of Tift, so the basket would have tied the score again with Chevers on the line to give Turner the lead. However, Tift was fouled and Dreka Burgess’ free throw with .2 left in the game, gave the Lady Devils a 49-46 win.
It was a come-from-behind win for Tift as Turner had built a lead as big as 10 points during the game.
“It was a total team effort. The girls didn’t quit, and I got a lot of help from my assistant coaches,” said Tift head coach Julie Conner. “We never quit working.”
On the dramatic play that sealed the win for Tift, Conner said, “I thought it was a textbook charge, and I was proud of Jasmine for taking it.”
Amber McKenzie led Tift with 19 points. Jessica Covington added 10 points and 11 rebounds. Tasheca Rogers also had eight rebounds for Tift.
Chevers and Demetria King had 14 points apiece for Turner.
The boys game was not over at presstime, but there will be a full story in Tuesday’s edition of The Tifton Gazette.
In other area high school basketball Saturday, the Tiftarea Academy Panthers were defeated by Southland, 52-38.
Stewart Sumner led the Panthers with nine points. Govind Chhina added eight, while Sumner McWhorter had seven.
On Friday night, Tiftarea defeated Crisp by a score of 42-19.
The game was called with 5:49 left in the third quarter after an injury to a Crisp player resulted in his being taken from the court on a backboard. Tiftarea coach Chip Champion indicated the player suffered a head injury, and was sent to the hospital for treatment.
Garrett Rippy led Tiftarea with 11 points. Chhina and Colby Czerepinski added nine points apiece.
Tiftarea will be back in action Monday against Terrell Academy.
