Madelain Tigano – The Corsair
One point. Just one point was the difference in going to the finals or going home. The Pensacola Junior College Lady Pirates lost the semi final round in the FCCAA/NJCAA Region VIII State Championship Basketball Tournament 61-60 against Tallahassee Community College March 5 in Marianna.
All-State guard and University of Florida signee Deana Allen hit a three-pointer from the top of the key to put PJC within one point with 4.1 seconds left in the game. Then came the controversy.
Following Allen’s shot, the base referee called the ball out of bounds when Tallahassee inbounded the ball with one foot out of bounds. Another referee, though, awarded Tallahassee a timeout.
“It was very controversial, the out-of-bounds call. PSB Live was telling me ‘let them watch it on film. You can see the ball was out of bounds,’ and it would have been our ball at our goal with plenty of time to score,” Head Coach Chanda Rigby said. “But if anything else, I was thinking, I wish we wouldn’t have put ourselves in that situation for the ending to be so close to need that call.”
Karneshia Garrett had a game high 19 points, with 14 in the second half.
“I just wanted the ball in the post,” Garrett said. “I knew the inside was weak so I was just going to pound it in.”
Rigby was happy with the freshman’s performance.
“Garrett was pretty unbelievable as far as her determination and her scoring around the goal,” Rigby said. “We probably should have done a better job getting it to her.”
The Pirates got off to a sluggish start and were down by 13 points six minutes into the game. They made up some ground late in the first half with eight unanswered points, but still trailed 31-22 at the half.
PJC came within 1 on four occasions in the second half in a hard fought game, but was unable to pull ahead.
“I don’t think we attacked as hard as we needed to in the beginning of the game,” Rigby said. “When we came back in the second half and started attacking, the other team already had the momentum. It’s hard to get momentum back. We never had the momentum in the game.”
Sophomore DeAngela Sword provided a spark with 10 points off the bench. Allen pumped in 9 points, including 2 three-pointers, all in the second half.
“It looked like (Tallahassee) wanted it more,” Garrett said. “We are just going to go back and start working on it for next year.”
With three freshmen in the starting line-up during post-season play, the Lady Pirates have a lot to look forward to next year.
“I am going to work even harder than I did this year to improve, by starting at the beginning of the year and not just by conference time,” Garrett said.