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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

CALERA – The Calera Eagles earned a hard-fought win for their senior class on Friday, Jan. 19, defeating the Shelby County Wildcats 45-41 for the Senior Night victory.

One of those seniors, Zoe Lenoir, had a strong shooting night from deep that helped the Eagles earn the win, and she got to work early with a pair of three-pointers in the first quarter.

Tamia Fairbanks also added four first-quarter points in her senior night to give Calera 13 points in the quarter.

On the other end, the Eagles held the Wildcats to just six points in the first quarter, with four of those coming from Emily Dixon. That gave Calera the early 13-6 lead at the end of the first.

A balanced scoring effort from the Eagles in the second quarter gave them 17 more points before halftime.

Mia Wade led the way with five points to help Calera outpace Shelby County’s 12-point second quarter and take the 30-18 lead into the break.

However, the Wildcats struck back and pulled within a possession of the lead in the third.

Morgan Arnold added to her five-point second quarter with eight points in the third quarter. Combined with four more points from Dixon, Shelby County scored 15 points in the quarter.

A pair of threes from Lenoir gave her five three-pointers in three quarters of play and limited the damage to keep her team up 36-33 going into the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter was tightly fought both on the field and on the free throw line, but in the end, five more points from Wade helped keep Calera in the driver’s seat as the Eagles willed their way to a senior night win.

Lenoir led Calera with 15 points, all of which came from three-pointers. Wade scored 10 points and Fairbanks and Samiyah Jemison each had five points.

As for Shelby County, Arnold scored a game-high 17 points and Dixon had a 15-point performance.