SWINT SCORES 20 IN FINAL GAME

Basketball season came to an end for the Booneville Lady Bearcats Thursday night with a 50-43 loss to Valley Springs in the opening round of the Class 3A Region 1 tournament in West Fork.

The Lady Bearcats close the year with a 17-7 record in a season in which they were the co-champions of Conference 3A-4.

There were six lead changes over the course of the first quarter and first half of the second quarter but the Lady Tigers closed the half on an 11-2 run and led the rest of the night.

The Lady Bearcats took their first lead at 5-4 on a pair of Leigh Swint free throws with 4:40 left in the first quarter and led again, 8-5 on a Linley Garrett 3.

Swint (shown) led the way with 20 points, the sixth game of scoring at least 20 in her senior year.

Valley Springs scored the next seven points and would lead 14-11 through a quarter in which they were 7-of-8 at the free throw line – all by the same player.

A Lexi Franklin basket got the Lady Bearcats within a point 7:38 before halftime and a rebound and basket by Carah Miller tied the game at 15 with 5:14 to go in the half.

The Lady Bearcats would pull in front on a conventional three point play by Swint, and led 19-17 on another Swint free throw with 3:47 remaining in the half.

Valley Springs tied it at the free throw line and would open a 24-19 lead before Miller took a pass from Franklin – one of her even assists in the game – and scored to make it 24-21.

It was 28-21 to start the second half and the Lady Tigers would twice open leads as big as 11 in the third quarter.

Swint got the deficit back to a single digit the both times, the first time from inside and the second from beyond the arc, both on assists from Franklin, who would also hit a 3 to make it 37-32 with 1:01 left in the third quarter.

Franklin finished with 10 points.

It stayed a five point game until Swint scored again with 7:03 left to cut it to 37-34 but Valley Springs would score five points in a span of 39 seconds to go up 42-34 and led by no less than four the rest of the way.

That came on Swint’s final points with 51 seconds to go that made it 47-43.

Valley Springs followed that with a layup then got another free throw – the Lady Tigers hit 14-of-19 on the night – to make it a three possession game with 23.7 seconds to go.