By Brad Greer

The last time South Panola faced Lake Cormorant, the Tigers missed eight freethrows in a 63-54 loss to the Gators in the Lewisburg tournament in November.

Friday night however South Panola made sure the third meeting between the two teams would not come down to their ability to hit shots at the charity stripe.

Led by  Kendall Turner’s 16 points, South Panola ran its winning streak to six games in a row with a 72-60 victory to improve to 8-2 on the season.

In varsity girls action, Lake Cormorant kept the Lady Tigers of South Panola winless on the year with a 47-35 win.

The Tigers, who shot a sizzling 55 percent from the floor on the night, raced out to a 17-5 lead after one quarter of play. R. J. Scott, who followed Turner in scoring with 13 points, swished a three-pointer from the left side to give South Panola a 13-3 advantage. Joshua Madison later added a layup off a turnover to extend the Tiger lead to 17-3 with under a minute left to play in the quarter.

Lake Cormorant came to life in the second quarter as back-to-back three pointers from Demarcus Sanders aided the Gators  on a 11-0 run to close the margin to 17-16. But as quickly as the Gators got back into the game, South Panola built the lead back to 23-16 at the 5:09 mark on back-to-back layups by Turner and Myron Powell’s jumper.

After Martavious McKnight’s three-pointer trimmed the deficit to 26-22, the Tigers closed the half on an 8-2 run for a 34-24 halftime advantage.

South Panola extended its second half lead to 40-26 on six straight points from Turner. The Tigers hit six freethrows in the quarter and were 10-of-16 on the night. Later in the quarter, South Panola built its largest lead of the game at 59-38 on Jaylen Webster’s three-point play.

A total of 11 players got in the scoring column for the Tigers as R. J. Scott followed Turner with 13 points. Madison chipped in with 10 points including a monster jam with 4:04 left in the game that brought the South Panola crowd to their feet. Eric Booker registered seven of his nine points in the fourth quarter. Powell and Webster contributed with five points while Laundricus Salter and Oxcavious Poole added four. Tydrekus Bradford, Harris and Jordan Mattews closed out the scoring with two points each.

Lake Cormorant (girls)-47 South Panola-35
Jaylen Rogers and Branna Smith combined for 34 points to lead the Lady Gators in victory.
Lake Cormorant jumped out to a 7-2 lead early in the first quarter on a Rogers inside basket at the 5:55 mark. Smith added six points in the stanza for a 12-6 lead after one quarter. Despite 2-of-11 free throw shooting, the Gators took a 22-13 lead at intermission.

The Lady Tigers started the third quarter on a 7-0 run to get within striking distance as Chresha Brown nailed a three-pointer and baskets by Naporshue Strong. Lake Cormorant regained control in the game to start the fourth quarter as Smith accounted for five straight points to give the Gators a 34-26 lead. Smith ended the night with 16 points before fouling out with 3:51 left in the game. Rogers led all scorers with 18 points.

Strong and Raven Brown followed Chresha Brown in scoring with six points each. Shanterica Amos and Taharia Bean chipped in with four points. Jasmine Wright finished with two points.

South Panola traveled to Water Valley last night and will host Lewisburg Thursday at 5 p.m. with the junior high boys contest.