Lady Red Raiders survive stiff challenge from Rhea County at Best of Preps tournament

Baylor's girls continued their winning ways in the Times Free Press Best of Preps basketball tournament - but just barely.

The Lady Red Raiders will get the opportunity to play for a sixth consecutive Best of Preps championship tonight after escaping Friday with a 45-44 semifinal victory over Rhea County at Chattanooga State.

Baylor (9-5) will take on Meigs County in the title game slated for 7 p.m. Rhea (14-3) will face Heritage in the game for third place, which is scheduled to start at 4.

The final score was reached when the Lady Golden Eagles' Mallory Hampton drove the lane for a layup with 1:09 to play. But there was still plenty of drama and action afterward.

In the Lady Raiders' effort to kill clock, they had an out-of-bounds infraction on the baseline, giving the ball back to Rhea with 28.3 seconds remaining. Baylor's Emma Martin deflected a pass, saved it from going over the sideline, then returned to the court to force a held ball with 12 seconds to go.

The Lady Golden Eagles retained possession, but an illegal screen was called on the inbound pass. Then as Rhea tried to foul, nothing was called until 1.1 second remained. Rhea rebounded a missed free throw but was unable to get off a three-quarter court shot before the final horn.

"First of all, that's a good basketball team," Baylor coach John Gibson said. "They're going to win a lot of games. We knew that coming in. We knew it was going to take our best effort. That was probably the best we've played defensively this year, and we still struggled at times. That's how good they are."

The Lady Golden Eagles came in averaging 66 points per game but were held to 16 in the first half. Coach Darvin Gill said some adjustments were made at halftime in an effort to get their transition game going and, after giving up the first two points of the third quarter to fall behind by five, Rhea reeled off 14 points in succession and went up 30-21.

In turn, the Lady Raiders answered with a 13-0 run before Rhea scored the next eight points. Ultimately, JuToreyia Willis's 3 from the right corner with 1:50 left broke a tie at 40 and put Baylor ahead for good.

"We wanted to go inside, take our time and get a good one," Gibson said of his team's play down the stretch. "We wanted to take the best thing we could for us. Cheyenne (Lindsey) was big on the glass and inside again for us. A lot of freshmen did some good things to help the older ones out, too."

Willis led Baylor with 18 points, Lindsey scored 11 and Raegyn Conley had eight.

Hampton paced the Lady Golden Eagles with 18 points, and Haley Cameron totaled 10. Micah Black made three of their four 3-point goals.

"I told the girls I was proud of them," Gill said. "Everybody made a mistake that they wanted back. Whether it was a missed box-out, a turnover, an offensive foul - and we got a couple of silly ones - all of those matter in a one-point or one-possession game. Ultimately, we've got to learn from it.

"This is good for us. We're not used to this. It's like postseason tournament time. It's three days. It's big crowds. And you learn a lot more from a loss than from a win. I'm super proud of our effort. Every mistake that was made was because somebody was trying to make a play."

Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.

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