The Texas High Lady Tigers finished their home season strong with a win over the Longview Lobos. The win ties them with Longview as co-district champions.

“Well we had a really good group of seniors that really put in a phenomenal performance to win a great game, and we had all eight of our kids on our team that played as good as we could play, shot as well as we could shoot,” Coach Robert Cochran said. “We just got to give our kids a lot of credit. They played phenomenal.”

The first quarter was a tug of war between both teams. The Lobos held a one-point lead by the end of the first quarter. In the second quarter, the Tigers started to grab a footing in the game. They started the quarter on an 11-2 run capped off by a layup by junior Grace Brooks. Senior Chanell Hayes nailed a buzzer-beater as time expired to send the crowd into a frenzy. The first half concluded with a score of 40-27 in the Tigers favor.

“My first thought was its the last game,” Hayes said. “I went in thinking that I had to do what I had to do to make a good memory behind it.”

The Lobos struggled to cut the deficit in the third quarter. Towards the end of the third quarter, Hayes was cramping which forced officials to call a timeout in the middle of a Lobos fast break. Hayes made her return in the fourth quarter as the Tigers continued dominating the court. The lead finally bursted into a lopsided score of 71-49 after a three pointer by senior Jalissa Trotter. The three seniors in uniform, Laken Edwards, Jalissa Trotter and Chanell Hayes walked off Tiger Center for their last time to a standing ovation from the crowd with one minute left in the game. The game concluded with a score of 83-56. The three seniors scored 74 of the Tiger’s 83 points Friday. Hayes led the way with 42 points.

“It was honestly bittersweet,” Edwards said. “I felt like it was amazing seeing everyone standing up and clap for us and it felt great to walk off the court with a win under our belt and everything but it was also really sad to know that I was never going to be able to play on that court again and see all those people.”

The Tigers closed off their district season with a win against Marshall Tuesday, and they will play Tuesday Feb. 17 against Whitehouse in the bi-district match up.

“We always still got to get better at rebounding, playing defense and getting better in our half court sets on offense,” Cochran said. “Thats something we’ll work on in the next week and we’ll try to get better.”