Danika Hopkins and all the great Tigerettes’ defenders from yesteryear would have been proud Thursday night.

It is never easy going in to the Dottie Kelso Memorial Gymnasium for a postseason game because the Marshall County Tigerettes are going to put their “Gloves” on, making it extremely difficult to score.

On Thursday night, the Forrest Lady Rockets found that out the hard way as they ran in to a stifling defensive effort by the Tigerettes that gave up a measly six first half points en-route to a 37-26 win in the District 12-AA Tournament semifinals.

The four-time state champion Tigerettes held Forrest’s leading scorer Carissa Curtis to one field goal and just three points in the game.

“We came in to the game trying to stop Carissa,” Marshall County junior Dionna Crutcher said.

Curtis scored on a rebound and put-back late in the first quarter and did not score again until she made a free throw with 3.2 seconds left in the contest.

“We come in to every game trying to work on defense,” Crutcher said. “That’s our main focus and our scoring will come later.”

The Tigerettes did not give up any first quarter points until Laura Mealer made a 3-pointer with 2:20 remaining in the stanza and then blanked Forrest from making any field goals in the second period, giving up a lone free throw to Ally Blanton with 2:15 left in the first half.

“We always start out in man-to-man defense and that’s what we did tonight, while we were sliding to help on Carissa,” Crutcher said.

The defensive effort was also buoyed by three first half charging fouls on Forrest.

On the offensive side of the ball, Crutcher came up huge for the Tigerettes with a game-high 17 points, including all three made 3-pointers in the game for Lewisburg.

Crutcher also canned 4-of-6 free throw attempts.

Kelsey Keiler had a solid all-around effort for MCHS with eight points and made 2-of-2 from the free throw line.

“Even though Kelsey didn’t’ score a lot of points, she is always our leader on the floor,” Crutcher said.

The Tigerettes also won the battle in low post as Hannah Davis and Israel Hurt combined for 12 points with Davis scoring eight and Hurt four.

“That was big,” Crutcher said. “When Hannah and Israel can give us some points in the low post, that makes it really tough on our opponents.”

Jaide Langley had 11 points to lead the Lady Rockets in the scoring column, while Shea Lewis had five, Blanton four, and Mealer and Curtis scored three points apiece.

The Tigerettes took an early 7-0 lead and led 11-5 at the end of the first quarter before Crutcher singlehandedly did it again as she scored the first seven points of the second period, capped off by a 3-pointer to take a commanding 18-5 lead.

With the way the Tigerettes were playing defense, the 13 point deficit must have felt like a hundred to the Lady Rockets.

Forrest trailed by 14 points entering the second half and made one mini-run on back-to-back 3-pointers by Lewis and Langley to cut the lead to eight points with 6:20 remaining in the third quarter.

Keiler and Davis came up with buckets in the paint for the Tigerettes and a Blanton 3-pointer kept the MCHS lead under double digits until Crutcher drilled another 3-pointer that sparked the Tigerettes to 6-0 run to end the third period and an insurmountable 32-15 lead.

Langley nailed a 3-pointer and a field goal to start the fourth quarter, but the gloves were not coming off for the Tigerettes, who advanced to the District 12-AA title game on Monday night versus top-seeded Nolensville, which blew out Giles County 60-24 in Thursday night’s first semifinal.

“We can beat them,” Crutcher said. “We were close the last time (48-47 loss on Valentine’s Day).”

“They have five good players, but if we play defense like we did tonight I think we can beat them.”

The eighth-ranked Lady Knights are on a 12-game winning streak and have won seven straight versus the Tigerettes, including last year’s district title game and the 2017-2018 region title game.

With all that success, Nolensville has not advanced to the state tournament in its four-year existence, while the Tigerettes have made 22 state tournament appearances in its glorious history, including last season.

Forrest 5 1 11 9-26

MCHS 11 9 12 5-37

Forrest (26): Jaide Langley 11, Shea Lewis 5, Ally Blanton 4, Carissa Curtis 3, Laura Mealer 3.

Three-Point Goals (5): Langley 2, Blanton, Mealer, Lewis.

Free Throws (3-for-5): Curtis 1-for-2, Blanton 1-for-2, Langley 1-for-1.

Marshall County (37): Dionna Crutcher 17, Kelsey Keiler 8, Hannah Davis 8, Israel Hurt 4.

Three-Point Goals (3): Crutcher 3.

Free Throws (6-for-8): Crutcher 4-for-6, Keiler 2-for-2.

Halftime Score: Marshall County 20, Forrest 6.