1996

ECLady WaiTiors claim .South o· Madison comes off bench to lead East Central over Hinds in title game, 85-71 By Ricky Sullivan The Mendian Star

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PERKINSTON - It was deja' vu all over again. For the second consecutive season, coach Sammy Pace's Lady Warriors of East Central Community College emerged as the champions of the MACJC South Division Tournament. This time with an 85-71 con– quest of Hinds Community College here Thursday night. "This is a tremendous accomplishment for our play– ers to come up with a huge VIC– tory for our program again this year.'' Pace ~a1d. ''I don't think there was a btt of .selfishness out on the floor tonight. They just wanted to win as a group and they did." With the win, the Lady Warriors improved to 17-9 on the season and will take on Coahoma, the North runner~­ up, in the state tournament Monday at Senatobia. Game– time is ::;latcd for 2:00 p.m. Hinds slipped to 17-11 and will battle Northwest, the North champion. Monday at 6:00p.m. East Central trailed by as many as 11 points - 21-10 - in the first half, but in the end, the Lady Warriors survived by outhustling and outscrapping the Lady Bulldogs in the sec– ond half. "There is no substitute for hustle." Pace said. "There is just no substitute." And while Christy Madi~on didn't score any points coming off the bench with the Lady Warriors behind, Pace credited the Neshoba Central product with a lot of his team's come– from-behind effort. "A key factor, and few peo– ple might not notice this, but Christy Madison came off the bench when things were in total chaos and just settled

East Central's Olivia McDaniel battles off three Hinds' defenders for a loose ball everybody down," Pace said. "It was tremendows the way she handled the team. She was the smallest kid on the floor - but certainly one of the smartest - to be able to settled us down and get a couple of key rebounds. 32 advantage at the break by sinking four consecutive free throws. After intermission, ECCC

Melody Reed, Region 23's lead– ing scorer and rebounder, and reserves Owens and Stephanie a Houston took charge as the J Lady Wamors raced to a 60-47 lead with 9:10 left in the con– test. "When you get your mind set on the game it makes a :s tremendous difference," Pace " - - ---- said. "We just didn't have our ___ mind of t h e game wh en it )URNAL started, but we finally got our . ____. mind set at halftime and it -~---- showed. We came out and did a good job...

''But sho is one of our cap– tains and we expect sopho– mores to do things like that," Pace added. At that point, the Lady Warriors rallied for a 20-10 scoring surge to capture a brief 30-29 - on a four-foot jumper from Mona Owens -with 2:18 left in the first half. But the Lady Bulldogs still managed to take a narrow 33-

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