By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

BARNESVILLE – It wasn’t their day.

The Callaway Lady Cavaliers rolled into the Region 5-AA tournament having won seven of their past eight games, and they appeared primed to perhaps break through and win the region title.

Instead, it’ll be Bremen playing for the region championship after beating Callaway 70-54 on Thursday afternoon at Lamar County High.

Callaway will play Heard County in the third-place game on Saturday at 4 p.m.

In Friday’s game, the Lady Cavaliers were down by 12 at the half, and that deficit grew to 21 late in the third quarter.

Callaway came to life and got as close as 14 in the fourth quarter, but it was Bremen’s day.

“The only thing I told them was, we came out and started off and didn’t give a lot of effort,” Callaway head coach Deyano Martin said. “At this point in the season, you can’t lose because of effort. It was a slow start, we didn’t take care of the ball, we didn’t get back on defense.”

A pair of talented freshmen led the way in scoring for Callaway.

Niakoe Burks was tops with 13 points, while post player Camryn Stargell added 11 points.

Senior Haley Holliday made a pair of 3-pointers and scored eight points, and Kierra Jackson and Gabrielle Johnson had six points apiece.

It was close early, with Bremen holding an 11-9 lead after the first quarter.

Bremen opened things up in the second quarter, and it had a 31-20 advantage at halftime.

Bremen continued to pad its lead in the third quarter, and it was ahead 50-29 when Ja’Naya Ware banked in a 3-pointer. By the time the third quarter came to a close, Callaway trailed 51-33.

Callaway was down by 21 when Holliday made back-to-back 3-pointers, cutting Bremen’s lead to 61-45 with 4:16 remaining.

With 2:56 remaining, Stargell’s basket trimmed Bremen’s lead to 63-49, but that’s as close as Callaway came.

“Late third quarter, early fourth quarter, we started playing really hard,” Martin said. “But you’ve got to bring that same effort from the beginning, and we just didn’t have it.”

Martin added that Bremen “played great. They played really hard, and really well. You could tell they really wanted it.”

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