After nearly losing their lead at the end of the third, the No. 6 Keith Bears relied on stingy defense in the fourth quarter to defeat the Sunshine Tigers 52-39 at home in an area game on Wednesday .

 

Bears’ head coach Tommy Tisdale said he’s glad his team got the win, but there’s much to improve on after a sloppy performance.

 

“We won and anytime you get a win it’s good, but in our performance we probably took two or three steps backward tonight,” Tisdale said. “We never really got in synch, we threw up a lot threes that were rushed for whatever reason, we couldn’t make a basket in our own gym. We get up for some games and then we come out for a game like this—a must have area game—and come out flat. A lot of that falls back on me, I probably didn’t do a good job of preparing. Take nothing away from Sunshine, they were ready to play and their boys played hard. I’m proud we got the area win, I’ll take it and we’ll build on it for tomorrow.”

 

The Bears (12-9, 4-0) were ahead 34-26 with less than a minute left to play in the third quarter when Sunshine’s Denzel Atkins scored off a stolen Keith inbound pass to make it a 34-28 game with 0:38 left in the quarter.

 

The Tigers stole the Bears’ inbound pass again and it Atkins once more who scored in the paint and made it 34-30 with 0:22 left in the period.

 

The Tigers weren’t done, as they stole another Keith pass, but this time it was Cletrel Pope who scored on a mid-range jumper to make it a 34-32 game going into the final quarter.

 

But Keith caught fire early in the final quarter as Rodney Ellis drained a three to make it 37-32 with 7:22 left.

 

After Keith’s Eric Tolbert hit two free throws, the Bears forced a turnover and Martavius Harris scored under to basket to extend the lead to 41-32 with 6:10 left in the game.

 

Sunshine came back with a basket from Pope making it 41-34 with 5:58 left and then forced a Bears’ turnover and got it Pope again, who this time score on a three-point play after being fouled making a 41-37 game.

 

Keith answered back as John Pettway hit a jumper and hit one of two free throws to extend Keith’s lead to 44-37.

 

Sunshine hit a pair of free throws to make it 44-39 with 4:19 left, but Keith came right back with a basket in the paint from Issac Boglin making it a 46-39 game.

 

The Bears forced a turnover the very next possession and Ellis finished off the fast break with a layup to put Keith ahead 48-39 with 3:02 left.

 

The Bears held the Tigers scoreless the rest of the way.

 

Pettway led the Bears with 13 points and Boglin added 12 points.

 

Pope led Sunshine with 15 points.

 

 

 

Lady Bears defeat Lady Tigers

 

 

 

The Keith Lady Bears put any hopes of a comeback to rest by scoring the first ten points of the final quarter, as they defeated the Sunshine Lady Tigers 44-36 in area play on Wednesday.

 

Lady Bears’ head coach Cecil Williams said his team played well and finished strong.

 

“We played pretty good tonight,” Williams said. “We had some bad moments where we slowed down in that third quarter where they kind of got back in the game, but we picked it back up in the fourth and played pretty strong to finish it.”

 

The Lady Bears (11-5, 4-0) entered the fourth quarter with only a 32-26 lead, but Stephanie Carson opened the quarter with a three to extend the lead to 35-26.

 

After a defensive stop, Keith came back down the court and Carson banked in a jump shot off the glass to make it 37-26 with 6:38 left to play.

 

Dasheena Thomas hit one of two free throws to add to Keith’s lead.

 

The Lady Tigers couldn’t hit their shots and Keith capitalized again as Naadira Pettway hit a three to put Keith up 41-26 with 5:01 left.

 

The Lady Bears held Sunshine to ten points in the quarter.

 

Harriet Winchester and Thomas led Keith with 10 points each.

 

Both Keith teams will take the home floor again Friday when they play area foe Autaugaville with games starting at 5:30 p.m.