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By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

To this point, though, no team has succeeded in giving Troup that first loss, and Thornton gives all the credit for that to the players.

“I told them I’m real pleased with y’all because, y’all earned this,” Thornton said. “You put in the work from day one. I told them, this is your work. There’s only so much we can do. We can put you in position to win, but at the end of the day, it’s on you to go out and perform and find a way.”

In Saturday’s game, freshman Alexcia Murphy led the way with 14 points, Amber Gilbert made two 3-pointers and scored eight points, and Jada Green had six points.

The Lady Tigers will now get a few days off before returning to the court on Friday.

“Just getting a little break will be nice going into the semifinals,” Thornton said.The Troup Tigers, meanwhile, closed out the regular season with a 76-70  loss to Cartersville.

After scoring 19 points in the first half the Tigers put 51 points on the scoreboard in the second half, but it wasn’t enough.

K.J. Tucker led the Tigers in scoring with 24 points.

Troup (11-11 overall), which had won three straight games, finished with a 5-7 Region 5-AAAA record, and it’ll be the number four seed for this week’s region tournament.

Troup will play Cartersville on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., and the game will be played at LaGrange High.

If Troup wins, it will advance to the semifinals on Friday while also earning a spot in the state tournament.

After the difficult first half on Saturday, head coach Blake Craft encouraged his players to build some momentum with a winner-take-all game in the region tournament coming up.

“That’s what I told them. We said at halftime, we’ve got to win the next three halves, and we won the second half,” Craft said. “Now if we win the next two halves, we’re good.”

The Troup Lady Tigers headed to Cartersville on Saturday hopeful of finishing off an unbeaten regular season, and they made it happen.

It wasn’t easy, but Troup did enough to walk away with a 35-31 victory and improve to 22-0 overall, and 12-0 in Region 5-AAAA.

Troup plays again on Friday in the semifinals of the region tournament at Sandy Creek.

Troup, after a big home win over Central-Carroll on Friday, had to turn around the next afternoon and make the trip to Cartersville, and it was a struggle.

“I wasn’t pleased with the effort, but at the same time I understood it,” said Troup head coach Carla Thornton. “Two games in less than 24 hours, that’s rough. You can see that our energy level wasn’t the same as it was (against Central).”

When the dust cleared, though, the Lady Tigers found a way to win, as they have every time they’ve suited up this season.

“(Going unbeaten is) a very hard task to do,” Thornton said. “I don’t think people realize how hard it is to win that many games. Everybody is giving you their best effort, because everybody wants to upset you, and give you that first loss.”