GREENSBORO &045; Area tournaments are the start of a new season. It does not matter what your record was in the regular season. The third seeded Sumter County Lady Wildcats came from down 15 points in the second quarter to beat the Francis Marion Lady Rams in double overtime, 69-64.

The Lady Wildcats went into the locker room with a 35-22 deficit. Though Francis Marion was winning on the offense boards, Sumter County was still able to get the score to single digits at the end of the third quarter. The Lady Rams held on to a 49-41 lead after three quarters of play.

In the fourth quarter, Francis Marion started to run out of gas, as the Lady Wildcats cashed in on five straight points to get as close as four, 51-47 with 5:16 showing on the clock.

A Katia May jumper with 1:25 left in the fourth would make the game a one-possession ball game. The Lady Rams would hold a four-point advantage with less than a minute, but Crystal Brown would knock down a short jumper, make a steal of the inbound pass and lay the ball up to tie the game at 55 with 26 seconds to go. Francis Marion couldn’t get the final shot off.

Neither team could mount more than a two-point advantage in the first overtime as it ended with a 63 all score.

Francis Marion couldn’t find the bucket in the second overtime, they didn’t make a field goal. In the meantime Lady Wildcat Jamesha Watkins scored four points in the second overtime, which was all the scoring her team needed to seal the win.

Francis Marion was hitting on all cylinders in the first half of the contest, as they built a 29-14 lead late in the second quarter. They were hitting shots, rebounding, and playing good defense, until they seem to get exhausted in the second half.