Although the Region 7-6A Tournament is being played at St. Martin High School this week, both squads from longtime arch-rival D’Iberville made themselves right at home Tuesday night.
The top-seeded Lady Warriors began the evening rallying late to edge past the host and fourth-seed Lady Yellow Jackets 37-34, and the third-ranked Warriors followed that up by upsetting second-seed Ocean Springs 57-44 to cap the victorious night off for DHS.
The wins move both DHS teams into their respective championship games on Friday night, where the Lady Warriors will face second-seed Ocean Springs at 6 p.m., followed by the Warriors and top-seeded Pascagoula at 7:30.
The D’Iberville girls trailed throughout most of the first three quarters and even into the fourth and final frame for a bit before the Lady Warriors tightened up defensively and caught a spark on offense and out-scored the Lady Yellow Jackets 11-4 in the fourth period to pull out the exciting three-point win.
Kalea Strom had five points in the decisive final period, including a big 3-pointer, and Teeale Wells added six points in the quarter including a pair of key free throws in the waning moments to secure the win.
Wells tallied a game-high 15 points for DHS in the win, including 13 of them in the second half to lead the winning rally. Storm chipped in 13 points to the winning cause as well. St. Martin’s leading scorers were Jay Robinson with 10 and Mia Morrow and Janila Curtis with eight points a piece.
St. Martin will face Pascagoula in the girls’ consolation game on Thursday night at 6 p.m.
In the boys’ game, the Warriors gained a measure of revenge after being swept in the two-game regular season series by the Greyhounds.
Ocean Springs led early in the game, even 10-6 after the first quarter, but it was in the second stanza when the Warriors began to make their move.
D’Iberville got seven points from Jaquan Newsome in that period, and the Warriors went on to out-score the Greyhounds 23-15 in the frame and in the process transposed that four-point first-quarter deficit into a four-point advantage of their own at 29-25 at halftime.
Feeding off the momentum of the second stanza success, D’Iberille really put the game away in the third quarter out-scoring OSHS 18-6 in that frame to take a commanding 47-31 advantage into the fourth and final period.
While the Greyhounds mounted a bit of a comeback in the last frame, out-scoring DHS 13-10, the third-quarter performance by the Warriors proved to be too much for OSHS to overcome resulting in the 13-point win.
The Warriors got a game-high 17 points from Newsome in the win followed by 13 points from Gabe Wells and 10 points from Marcus Washington.
The Greyhounds were led by Elijah Isom’s 14 points and they also got 11 points from Madoxx Noblitt in the loss.
Ocean Springs will face St. Martin Thursday night in the boys’ consolation game at 7:30.
