JACKSON — Tydajasha Hood clutched the edge of the court with both hands.
Fouled hard at the basket with a minute and 22 seconds remaining in Monday’s MHSAA Class 1A semifinal against Biggersville, the West Lowndes High School senior landed on her stomach well behind the left side of the rim. Already nursing an injury from earlier in the quarter, Hood stretched out her arms to grab the side of the floor and save herself from a short but ungainly spill onto the dull gray concrete of the Mississippi Coliseum.
For a moment, as Hood fought to hold on, it felt like the Panthers’ hold on the game was teetering on the edge just like their star was. West Lowndes, once up 12 points, trailed 40-39 after a sustained Biggersville run at time the senior was fouled.
But a teammate helped Hood to her feet. She made the second of two free throws to tie the game for a final time. And thirty-four seconds later, she hit the go-ahead layup in a 44-40 win that sent West Lowndes into Thursday’s state championship game against Ingomar.
“That goes to show what kind of heart she has,” fifth-year coach Takeea Bozeman said of Hood’s perseverance through pain to put the Panthers on top. “She’s all about the team.”
But Hood, who led West Lowndes with 17 points Monday, wasn’t alone in giving the Panthers a chance to win their second state championship and their first since 2004. Senior spark plug Averi Sanders had 12 points, including the game-sealing layup off her own steal with six seconds to go, as she and Hood got the job done.
“One is an offensive general; the other one is a defensive general,” Bozeman said. “They cover both ends of the floor. I just told them, ‘Play your game. Play your game.’ Averi had the best defense of her life out there, and Tydajasha actually had the best offensive night of her life out there. They knew what they were supposed to do.”
That, Bozeman said, was to win. West Lowndes nearly didn’t.
After the Panthers stretched the score to 33-23 in their favor with roughly five minutes to go, Biggersville finally began to hit the shots it missed all morning. Leileigh Moody buried a corner 3-pointer to cut the lead to seven, and the Lions soon had the lead down to three before Hood stole the ball and injured herself in the process. She passed to Sanders, who was fouled and made both free throws out of the one-and-one. With 2:26 to go, West Lowndes’ lead was back to six, and the Panthers had possession.
Biggersville responded with a 7-0 run to take the lead for the first time since the score was 9-6 with 1:55 left in the first quarter. Asia Stafford put back a missed free throw from Aaliyah Moody to put the Lions on top 40-39.
“We didn’t quit,” Biggersville coach Cliff Little said. “We just took a little while to get started.”
But Bozeman knew a run was coming from the Lions, and it was up to how her experienced starting lineup would respond. When she saw Hood hit the tying foul shot and later cut through the defense for the go-ahead score, she was more at ease.
“I knew that they were going to change things to adjust,” she said. “That’s what teams do. It took us a little longer to adjust to their adjustment, but once we did, I was pretty confident that we were going to win.”
It was all but certain when Sanders stripped Biggersville sophomore Hannah Seago near the right wing with the clock winding down. The diminutive senior finished a left-handed layup over the Lions’ Goldee Butler with six seconds remaining.
“It meant a lot for us,” Hood said of the clutch play. “When she did that, we knew we had it.”
The Panthers had managed to hold on after forcing 12 first-half turnovers to open up a sizable lead. Part of that was due to solid clock management: Up 19-12 with 2:01 to go in the second quarter, West Lowndes elected not to let the Lions touch the ball again until after halftime.
Sanders dribbled in place near midcourt for an entire minute, then passed the ball to Hood for a repeat. With 12 seconds to go, Hood made her move. The Panthers missed two shots inside, but senior Nenah Young cleaned up a putback with one second to go to make it a nine-point game at the break.
“Our plan was to run time off the clock — not that much time,” Bozeman said. “But we saw that they were not going to come out, and we’d rather just not turn the ball over, not shoot wild shots and give them a chance to score, so we just held it as long as they were going to let us hold it.”
Little said his team didn’t open up its attack until the second half, and though the Lions briefly took the lead, it was too little, too late.
“We just didn’t play very well,” he said. “They did what they had to do to make us do that.”
For West Lowndes, that was defense, athleticism and timely plays by Hood and Sanders as the seniors took the Panthers from the edge of elimination to a chance at glory.
Bozeman expressed confidence that her team will come out on top in Thursday’s 1 p.m. final against Ingomar in what would be her first state championship while coaching the Panthers.
“It’s going to mean the world when we win because this will be my first one,” she said. “It’ll mean the world.”
Other scores
MHSAA semifinals
Class 1A girls: Ingomar 58, Simmons 33
Class 1A boys: Biggersville 62, McAdams 30
Class 1A boys: Ingomar 64, McEvans 48
Class 4A girls: Choctaw Central 72, Pass Christian 49
Class 4A girls: Pontotoc 37, Moss Point 21
Class 4A boys: Raymond 55, Itawamba Agricultural 37
Class 4A boys: Lanier 60, Pontotoc 57, OT
Prep Softball
Saltillo 2, New Hope 1
SALTILLO — New Hope softball dropped a 2-1 game Monday at Saltillo.
The Trojans got one run in the top of the seventh, but it wasn’t enough offense to beat the Tigers.
Zoe Goodman led New Hope with two hits, and Adi Dueitt drove in the Trojans’ run. Dueitt pitched a six-inning complete game with five strikeouts.
New Hope will play Thursday at East Webster in Maben.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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