The Higbee girls outscored CLAA Conference rival Brunswick 27-21 in the fourth quarter of last Tuesday’s game to escape with a 63-60 win on Homecoming. The victory also helped secure a top seed for the Lady Tigers in this week’s Carroll-Livingston Activities Association Conference Tournament hosted by Tina-Avalon. They officially clinched the top spot with a 77-49 win the following night at Hardin-Central.

Higbee opened the tournament with a 98-10 win over eighth-seeded Hale to advance to the championship semifinals. The Lady Tigers will face the winner of Tuesday’s game between fourth-seeded Norborne and fifth-seeded Tina-Avalon at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. The winner will advance to the title game on Saturday.

Tuesday’s Homecoming was perhaps closer than it should, or at least could, have been. Higbee struggled from the field, sinking just 28.2 percent and 24.3 percent from 3-point range.

“We turned around and won the thing. It just shows you a lot of the expectation,” said Higbee coach Tanner Burton. “We play a really tough schedule. It’s one thing to say it, and it’s another thing to see the benefits and reap the reward of it. It’s just that heart, will, and determination to take care of business when it matters. When they started pressing, we started playing old-school Higbee basketball. I only had seven kids. We have illness running through school, and so I was really proud of how they just stepped it up a notch.”

Freshman starting point guard Ava Welch had an uncharacteristic night at the basket, sinking just five of 27 shots, including two of 17 attempts from the arc. Even so, she still managed to score a team-high 20 points with nearly perfect 8-for-9 free-throw shooting, along with five rebounds, two assists, and four steals.

“This was probably Ava’s worst shooting night of the season. She still ended with 20,” Burton said about his freshman standout. “For a freshman to continue doing what she does against Classic 4, Class 1, class everybody, it says a lot.”

Welch led three Higbee players in double-figures and five in the scorebook. Junior Kiersten Rockett added 15 points, and sank two of three attempts from the 3-point line and finished 3-for-4 from the line. She added eight rebounds and three assists. Senior sharpshooter Lauren Spilman added 14 points as she drew the brunt of the Brunswick defense. She also brought down 11 rebounds and dished out nine assists, nearly completing a triple-double, with the addition of four steals.

Junior Brooke Dougherty added eight points with a pair of threes, six rebounds, and four steals. Junior Natalie Ritter posted six points and six boards.

“It’s going to be hard, and you have to pick your poison. So who do you pick?” Burton said. “People know that Lauren’s going to score and Ava’s going to score and Kiersten is going to score. The outcome of our season will come down to the other players coming off the bench, or the fourth and fifth players. And how do they step up in big games? Those bench players did that. Natalie hit big shots, Brooke hit big shots, and Kiersten hit some big shots. And that was the difference in the game.”

Brunswick had its share of offensive threats with three players scoring double-digits. Senior Joslynn Brown was nearly unstoppable in the paint, shooting 10-for-14 from the floor and sinking her only 3-point attempt, a fourth-quarter swish that sparked a six-point run late in the game. She also dominated the boards with 21 rebounds, 10 of which came on the offensive glass.

“We we decided that Brown was killing us on the inside, so we pressed and made her run more,” Burton explained. “The size gives us problems. We were trying to mix up some different things defensively to get good looks at her. We fronted her, and it didn’t really pay off. We tried to execute what we had planned. And so now we go back to the drawing board and probably get on treadmills and be ready to just roll them next time.”

Junior Emery Reichert added 21 points for Brunswick, draining all seven of her baskets from 3-point distance. Freshman Emma Smith added 10 points and 11 rebounds.

After Higbee jumped out to a 10-3 lead midway through the first quarter, Brunswick answered with a 10-2 run in the bottom half of the period to inch ahead 13-12 after eight minutes. The wildcats did not surrender their lead until the fourth quarter. Ritter opened the final stanza with a three to tie the game. Half a minute later, Spilman tripled to give the Lady Tigers their first lead since the opening quarter. Another three by Dougherty with 6:42 put Higbee in front for good, while the game remained close.

Higbee led by as much as nine points late. That’s when Brown’s 3-pointer ignited a late six-point run by the Wildcats to cut the margin to three points with 89 seconds left on the clock.

Higbee converted seven of eight free throws in the final 1:19 to hold on for the win.

“Free throws are always nice,” Burton said. “Usually, that’s not how we play the game. We like to make things a little more interesting. But when they hit them, it makes it a little more comfortable, and obviously, it takes the air out of the other team. And so that’s what you want. So you got your best players touching the ball at the end of the game, and they’ve got to do their job at that point.”

The Homecoming victory was Higbee’s fifth in a row among seven wins in a string of eight games. The streak ended on Saturday with a 93-74 loss to No. 4 Delta in the Central Bank Shootout in Jefferson City. Monday’s tournament win kicked off a hectic final two weeks of the season, starting with the conference tournament all week. The Lady Tigers wrap up the regular season with three games in four days next week. First up is a road trip to Prairie Home on Tuesday, followed by a game at Harrisburg on Wednesday, currently the No. 7-ranked team in Class 2. Higbee closes the regular season at home against Class 2 South Shelby on Friday, Feb. 20.

The postseason begins with the Class 1 District 10 Tournament starting Feb. 23 in Madison.