The Morgan Academy Lady Senators got within reach late, but ultimately fell short, as they lost 39-25 to the Autauga Academy Lady Generals at home on Thursday.

Jennifer Moore, head girls basketball coach of Morgan Academy (1-2), said the Lady Senators are continuing the show improvement, but she wants them to work to get easier baskets.

“We’re improving gradually day by day. We couldn’t get anything to fall today. Any shots we took, they just weren’t falling,” Moore said. “The main thing I’m trying to get us to work on is working the ball inside and getting our players to move. We’ve just got to break the habit of pass, shoot, pass shoot. We need to pass, work the ball inside and go for the layup instead of trying to shoot threes every chance we get.”

The Lady Senators trailed 28-11 when Katherine Averitt hit a shot under the basket to bring Morgan closer at 28-13 with 2:25 left to play in the third.

Averitt put the Lady Senators even closer after a successful trip to the charity stripe netted two more points for Morgan and made it 28-15 with 2:04 left in the third quarter.

Autauga finally answered back as a layup by Paige McCord put the score at 30-15 with a 1:36 left in the quarter.

Morgan responded, as Kendall Veach drained a 3-pointer to make it 30-18 with 1:18 left in the third.

Averitt hit another shot in the paint for Morgan with 50 seconds left in the quarter to make it a 30-20 game going into the fourth.

But Autauga ended the Morgan comeback early in the fourth, opening the quarter on a 5-0 run and outscoring the Lady Senators 9-5 in the quarter.

Lindsey Yeldell, Casey Baggett and Averitt each had 6 points for Morgan, while Veach had 5 points.

Morgan will take the floor again on Monday at home against Sumter Academy with games starting at 4 p.m.