RUSSELLVILLE, Mo. - It was exactly the kind of frenetic finish you would expect from a game matching up two of the top-10 basketball teams in Class 1.
The Jamestown Lady Eagles took a 13-point lead into the fourth quarter and then hung on for dear life before finally claiming a 61-56 win against the Tuscumbia Lady Lions on Saturday night in the championship game of the Russellville Tournament.
It was so much fun the teams should do it again. They will, in fact, as Tuesday night they'll have their regular-season meeting at Tuscumbia.
Jamestown, the seventh-ranked team in the state, improved to 14-3 with the victory, while sixth-ranked Tuscumbia dropped to 14-3.
"I've got a great group of seniors and all five of them contributed in every way," Jamestown coach E.H. Hirschvogel said. "And now we've got a freshman stepping in and helping us out, too. So there's a lot of experience out on the floor and that helped us a lot."
Jamestown, which never trailed, jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the game's first three minutes on scores by four different players.
A 5-0 run by Tuscumbia got the Lady Lions within one point. But a the Lady Eagles had a 7-0 run immediately after that thanks to a 3-pointer by Mickayla Strother and back-to-back layups by Lexi Muri. That put the Lady Eagles up by eight and they would take a 15-9 lead into the second quarter.
"We started off really slow and we let them jump out on us," Tuscumbia coach Kyle Pointer said.
Jamestown kept building the lead in the second quarter, eventually going up 32-20 with 2:08 left before halftime on a layup by Muri.
Hirschvogel said he was happy to go into halftime with a 34-24 lead.
"Give credit to Tuscumbia, because we had to adjust in a lot of ways to play them," he said.
The lead reached 13 on three different occasions in the third quarter, the last being when Muri made 1-of-2 free throws to send it to the fourth with Jamestown up 49-36.
Poynter said he knew his team had a rally in it heading to the fourth quarter.
"We haven't had too many games where we've had to battle back this year," he said. "But against South Callaway, we were down early by 14 points in the first quarter and battled back and tied it at halftime.
"Then we had four players on the floor in the fourth quarter with four minutes to go and hit a 3 at the buzzer to go to overtime. Then in overtime we only had three players on the floor with three minutes left and ended up pulling it out.
"So we know how to battle back. These girls don't stop working, their motors don't stop."
The Lady Lions scored the first six points of the fourth quarter on free throws by TaKayla Gunter, who drove to the basket time and time again, racking up fouls on the Lady Eagles.
"We knew they have one of the best players in the state on the floor and we knew they were going to get the ball in her hands, especially late," Hirschvogel said.
"We just tried to hold our water, basically."
Tuscumbia cut the lead to two twice in the final three minutes, first on a jumper by Mackenzie Humphrey and then on a jumper by Gunter. The Lady Lions then got within 55-54 with 1:15 left when Humphrey made 1-of-2 free throws.
Jamestown's Sam Nivens then hit 1-of-2 free throws before a Tuscumbia turnover led to a layup by Alli Muri with :40 left. That made it 58-54 and the Lady Eagles' lead never dipped below three points the rest of the way.
Alli Muri tied for game-high honors with 19 points, while Strother had 18 and Lexi Muri added 15.
Nivens pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
Gunter ended up with 19 points for Tuscumbia, while Abbi Grimwood had 15.
Humphrey added eight, while Erin Williams and MaKayla Vaughan chipped in with seven each.
"The goal was to take as much away from Gunter and Vaughan as we could," Hirschvogel said. "They're an awesome 1-2 punch and we knew we weren't going to stop them, but if we could slow them down, we'd have a chance. I feel like we did that."
Poynter said his team is looking forward to this week's rematch.
"They come to our place, so we'll get back to work Monday at practice and we'll be ready for them Tuesday."
Gunter was named the tournament's MVP and was joined on the all-tournament team by Vaughan.
Jamestown had four players make the squad, as Lexi and Alli Muri were joined by Mickayla and Mackenzie Strother.
Also making the team were Eugene's Katelyn Engelbrecht and Lexi Dickerson, Versailles' Duanna Frerking and Russellville's McKendra Fischer.