By Kevin Eckleberry

kevin.eckleberry@lagrangenews.com

A strong finish propelled the Troup Lady Tigers to a 48-40 road win over Callaway on Friday.

Troup trailed by a point after the third quarter, but it outscored Callaway 16-7 in the final period win going away.

Troup head coach Carla Thornton felt the offensive effort could have been better, but she was pleased with how the defense performed.

A lot of Troup’s fourth quarter points came after the defense forced turnovers.

“Offensively, we weren’t clicking at all tonight,” said Thornton, whose team improved to 5-2. “We were terrible offensively. So we told them we can always play defense.”

Callaway, which opened the season with a win over Whitewater, fell to 1-3 with two losses to LaGrange and now one to Troup.

“We had too many fouls, and we missed too many layups,” Callaway head coach Deyano Martin said.

Callaway has been competitive in each of its losses, but it has been unable to close any of those games out.

“Some of these games, we should win,” Martin said. “You’ve got to go out and finish.”

Amber Gilbert, in her second game back after undergoing offseason knee injury, led Troup with 13 points, and she was 8-of-12 from the free-throw line.

Jedda Madden added 11 points, and she was a perfect 5-for-5 on free-throw attempts.

Kiya Fulton contributed nine points, and Aundracia Riggins added eight points.

For Callaway, Qua Beasley made two 3-pointers and scored 12 points, and Kierra Jackson added 10 points.

Beasley scored with one second left in the first quarter to give Callaway a 13-10 lead.

The Lady Tigers rallied to go up by as many as four points in the second quarter after Gilbert hit a 3-pointer with 2:05 left in the half.

The Lady Cavaliers responded, scoring the final four points of the second quarter to make it a 21-21 game at the break.

It was tied 26-26 in the third quarter when Zorea Phillips hit a 3-pointer for Callaway to start a 5-0 run.

Troup answered with a 6-0 run to take the lead before Callaway’s Trinity Hill drove and made a layup to give her team a 33-32 lead through three quarters.

Hill scored again moments into the fourth quarter to give Callaway a three-point lead, but Troup went on a 6-0 run to take a 38-35 lead.

The Lady Cavaliers tied it at 38-38 with 3:27 to play, but the Lady Tigers finished the game on a 10-2 run.

Beasley scored with 2:25 to play to get the Cavaliers within one before the Lady Tigers scored the final seven points.

Gilbert was 6-of-8 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter.