JACKSON — Tupelo made history.
Behind the play of Jada Rucker, the Lady Wave held off Starkville 62-57 in overtime to claim their second straight MHSAA Girls Class 7A State Championship on Thursday night at the Mississippi Coliseum.
It’s Tupelo’s (29-4) third state title in school history.
“I told the girls we’ve been in this situation before and just go back to do what we do,” said Tupelo coach Matt Justice. “The first two minutes of the third quarter was big for us. We went to what we do best, and we played our style of basketball in the second half.”
Starkville started out with a 11-7 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Yellow Jackets built a 20-7 lead midway through the second quarter, but Tupelo outscored Starkville 17-8 to close out the first half to cut the Starkville lead to 24-15 at halftime.
The Lady Wave went on a 12-5 run to begin the third quarter to cut the Starkville lead down to 27-25.
A Rucker lay-up with 2:36 left in the quarter gave the Lady Wave their first lead of the game at 31-30.
Tupelo held a slim 36-35 lead at the end of the third quarter.
After a back-and-forth fourth quarter found Tupelo clinging to a slim 45-42 lead, Starkville’s Jada Gay scored six straight points to give the Jackets a 48-45 lead with 3:17 remaining.
After Zariyah Edwards hit a lay-up to give Starkville a 52-50 lead, Rucker made a lay-up to tie the game at 52.
Starkville had a chance for a game-winning shot but a travel call with .9 seconds left and a Tupelo inbounds pass sent the game to overtime.
In overtime, the Lady Wave outscored the Jackets, 10-5, and sealed the game when Cadence Crump hit a pair of free throws with 41 seconds left to give Tupelo a 60-54 lead.
“We knew them and they knew us. It was going to come down to whether or not we can stop them from what they do, which is get in the paint and get rebounds. In the second half we did a great job of that and creating turnovers,” Justice said. “Jada stepped up and made shots. We made history. (Made) it down here three times in a row and now winning it back-to-back is just an amazing feeling.”
Rucker finished with 22 points and 12 rebounds to lead Tupelo and was named the game’s most valuable player.
“We’ve been in those situations being down and we had to play our basketball, put pressure on them and play fast,” Rucker said. “It’s an amazing feeling going back-to-back and me being a senior is even greater.”
Gay had 17 points and 16 rebounds to lead Starkville, while Zariyah Edwards and Zariah Brown each added 11 points for the Yellow Jackets (25-7).
“We played extremely hard, and we gave everything we had, but Tupelo is the defending champs for a reason. They had a good game plan of taking away the paint and they did a good job,” said Starkville coach Matt Wilbanks. “We had our chances to put them away and had a chance to win the game. It just didn’t go our way.”
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