ITTA BENA — It was a rough Friday for Starkville High School basketball as the Yellow Jackets, playing in both the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 7A boys and girls quarterfinals.
Both teams were sent home in the quarters after a pair of close finishes at Mississippi Valley State.
The girls team led things off in the afternoon, facing a tough Tupelo opponent against whom they split two matchups earlier in the season. Starkville (24-7) trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half before battling back to take a 36-34 lead going into the fourth quarter.
“They realized at the beginning that the nerves got the best of them,” girls head coach Kristie Williams said. “Once they were able to settle it down, that was motivation enough to say, ‘We still have a fighting chance.’ That was the turning point.”
However, the Jackets couldn’t close things out, falling 53-48 in head coach Kristie Williams’ final game as head coach of the program.
On the boys side, the Jackets (18-12) entered a low-scoring affair against Germantown, the fourth time the two programs faced off this season.
Starkville led 25-21 going into the fourth quarter and had a two-possession lead with just over three minutes left to play, but the Mavericks stormed back, tying things at 28-28 to force overtime, where they roared ahead for a 37-30 win, outscoring the Jackets, 16-5, over the final 12 minutes of play.
“We rushed a few shots, let them speed us up a little bit,” boys head coach Woodie Howard said. “I think we let the officiating get to us. Us not getting calls in certain areas, it messed with their heads, so we stopped driving as much or we went in seeking the foul instead of trying to score.”
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