By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

ST. MARTIN — The St. Martin girls came up just short of knocking off highly-ranked Biloxi in Region 4-7A play Tuesday night.
Like about six inches.
The Lady Indians held off a never-say-die group of Lady Yellow Jackets 31-29 to move to an impressive 18-2 overall on the season and 4-0 in the region race.
Biloxi led by double digits in the first half, before a valiant comeback attempt by St. Martin in the final nine minutes of action ended with a jump shot by sophomore Kaleah Lowery with just over a minute to play. St. Martin trailed 30-27 at that point, and Lowery’s jumper was just a shade inside the 3-point arch to cut the deficit to 0ne.

Biloxi’s Nakena Terry, who missed a pair of free throws just a minutes earlier, sank one of two with nine seconds left to result in the final score. St. Martin’s La’Dymien Lafayette and her teammates watched as her last-second jumper banged off of the rim as the final horn sounded.
“Good team win. They have a good team, who plays really hard,” Biloxi head coach Devin Hill said just after the exciting finish. “I thought we had a good plan and executed really well in the first quarter. We got really stale on offense after that, but like I’ve always said the staple of our team is our defense and thankfully we didn’t have an off night there. St. Martin will be a tough out for a lot of people, and we are thankful to leave with a “W”.

Biloxi used a pair of lay-ups from Aaliyah Davidson in the opening period, one at the beginning of an 11-0 run and one at the end, to take that quick double-digit lead mid-way through the first frame. The Lady Indians went on to lead by nine points, at 13-4, as the second period began.
The teams battled pretty evenly throughout the second stanza and then into the third frame, but St. Martin began to make its move as the period came to a close as Lowery had six points including a 3-pointer and classmate Kylenn Ward drained a 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut the deficit to just three at 26-23 entering the final quarter.
The Biloxi lead remained at three, at that aforementioned 30-27, as the game clock approached the two-minute mark. Both teams had chances, but each suffered several turnovers until Lowery hit her big shot that set in motion the final scenario.

“Our kids stayed locked in after halftime and made a big push,” St. Martin head coach Jason Kennedy said. “We just had a few missed opportunities offensively. I thought the game was executed pretty well by both teams. I love the chess match and coach Hill does a tremendous job of getting his girls ready to play. We will bounce back and be better after this one.”

Biloxi got seven points apiece from both Aaliyah Davidson and Kylie Caruso in the win. St. Martin held Biloxi’s big 6-foot-3 freshman center Zaniya Johnson to just four points in the game, by far her season low. She had been averaging over 23 points per game in the past month coming into the contest.
Lowery had a game-high 20 points for St. Martin, including all six of the Lady Yellow Jackets six points in the fourth frame.
“We didn’t really have an answer one-on-one for Lowery,” Hill concluded. “She had her way with us. That’s something we have to clean up moving forward. At the end of the day, we are happy to get the win but we have to play better offensively moving forward.”