The Cornersville Middle School Lady Bulldogs (8-4) completed the season sweep of New Prospect on Monday night by defeating the Lady Tigers 25-23 at home.

CMS had beaten New Prospect 32-22 in their previous encounter on Oct. 24, but the Lady Tigers appeared they might even the score in Monday's contest after building a 21-16 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Changed team

The Lady Bulldogs, however, stepped up their play down the stretch and outscored New Prospect 9-2 the rest of the way to escape with the two-point victory.

"I told them before the game started that New Prospect would be a totally different team than they were at the beginning of the year. They always get better throughout the season. Our point guard Taylor Powers was also sick and was only able to play a few minutes so that affected us too," said Cornersville coach Peyton Newton. "The comeback started with our defense and when we ran our offense correctly we scored. When we do what we're supposed to do, we do ok offensively."

Although the Lady Tigers finished with a 10-8 advantage in field goals and a 2-1 edge in three-pointers, CMS was able to make up the difference at the foul line and outscored New Prospect 8-1 at the charity stripe.

Offensive star

Center Morgan Terry carried much of the offensive load for the Lady Bulldogs and tallied a game high 14 points on 5-of-8 shooting to go along with eight rebounds and four steals. Emma Mitchell followed Terry with four points, while Powers added three points. Gabriel King and Melody Parker chipped in two points apiece for Cornersville as well.

Sara Brown paced the Lady Tigers with 11 points, while Cheyenne Johnson notched six points. Lauren Beckman and Rylynne Roysden rounded out the scoring for New Prospect with four and two points respectively.

The Lady Tigers knocked CMS back on their heels at the start of the game and jumped out to a 6-0 lead midway through the first quarter.

Cornersville then sliced the deficit to 6-5 thanks to two free throws from Mitchell and a Powers trey before Johnson banked in a three-pointer in the waning moments of the first quarter to give New Prospect a 9-5 advantage.

Roaring into lead

After King hit a short jumper to narrow the gap to 9-7 early in the second period, the Lady Tigers responded with a 6-2 spurt to stretch their lead to 15-9 with 1:40 left in the stanza.

Terry then singlehandedly erased the deficit by scoring the final six points of the half on a layup, a short bank shot, and a jumper to tie the game at 15-15 at the break before making one-of-two free throws at the start of the third quarter to stake CMS to a 16-15 advantage.

New Prospect rattled off six straight points to seize a 21-16 advantage early in the fourth quarter, but the Lady Bulldogs managed to right the ship and put together an 8-0 run behind six points from Terry and two Mitchell free throws to pull ahead 24-21 with :27 left.

Brown knocked down a jumper to whittle the deficit to 24-23 before Terry hit one-of-two foul shots with 6.5 seconds left to extend Cornersville's lead to 25-23. The Lady Tigers then failed to get off a shot on their final possession before time expired.