By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

NORTH SHELBY – Oak Mountain held a 21-10 lead over the visiting Chelsea Lady Hornets in an in-county matchup on Dec. 10. The Lady Eagles were crashing the offensive boards with effectiveness, and hadn’t allowed Chelsea to really find any sort of footing offensively. Heading into the fourth quarter, Oak Mountain had extended its lead to 39-22 and the game effectively over before Chelsea made a furious fourth-quarter comeback that came up just short, but did make the game more interesting.

The Lady Eagles actually extended their lead early in the fourth to 44-23. Down by 21, Clarissa Clark’s team of just seven players turned on some sort of interior switch, and began to claw back in. The Lady Hornets began pressing all over the court and caused a number of ill-advised Oak Mountain passes which ended more often than not in Chelsea buckets.

Michaella Edwards and Hope Richard each had 10 points in the final quarter of play as Chelsea scored more fourth quarter points than it did in the first three combined. But, it was too little too late, and after pulling the game to within five at 55-50, were unable to complete the comeback and fell 58-54.

“I thought we played well for three quarters, and then in the last quarter we kind of got lost in the press a little bit,” Oak Mountain head coach Allen McGowan said after the game. “We rebounded well enough and played just well enough to finish it, which was good. All of our victories are tough, so it was good to get another one.”

Kennedy Smith led the way for Oak Mountain with 18 while Jacoby Sims contributed 15 while Richard led all scorers on the night with 20.

“Chelsea did a great job and started making shots,” McGowan added. “I felt like the momentum was there for them, and I felt like the girls did a good job of holding on after the big momentum swing.”