The Texas High Tigers beat the Mount Pleasant Tigers in a close victory of 71-63 in an home game on Tuesday, Feb. 16.

The game started poorly for Texas High after Mount Pleasant scored four points in less than a minute while the Tigers were struggling on offense.

Texas High quickly recovered. Junior Quan Hampton shot a 3-pointer to tie the score at 6-6 with 2:38 left in the game. Texas High brought up the score to 12-8 at the end of the 1st quarter to take the lead.

After junior Lavon Brown scored a field goal midway through the second quarter, Texas High seized a 23-10 lead. Brown then increased the lead 36-21 with ten seconds remaining in the half.

In the third quarter the score swayed again to bring the score up to 47-40 with Texas High still in the lead four minutes left in the third quarter. By the end of the third quarter, Mount Pleasant was trying to crawl back into the game until Hampton scored a basket that brought the score up to 49-45 by the end of the third quarter.

“The intensity was up in the crowd and that gave us motivation,”Hampton said.

The fourth quarter started with Texas High nearly losing the lead with a near tie of 49-48. Texas High expanded their lead again in response, leaving the score at 58-53 with five minutes left in the quarter.

Senior JaNiro Lane put the nail in the coffin with 43 seconds left in the game with a field goal to set the score at 71-63 in Texas High’s favor. Texas High won 71-63.

“We did a good job at getting the rebounds like we were supposed to, and did a good job of keeping the ball out of Number 44’s hands because he’s really good,” Hampton said.

Despite the winning score, Lane sees problems with the team and a few ways that they can improve.

“We have a hard time with rebounding because we’re a small team, but at the same time, we stay together as a team and get the ball down the court,” Lane said. “We can improve on communication, sometimes we lose points because of it, especially on defense, we need to talk more because more communication wins games.”