CLINTON — A nearly 4-minute stretch of the fourth quarter in Wednesday’s quarterfinal matchup almost cost Leake Academy a chance to continue playing for a Mississippi Private School Association Overall Championship at A.E. Wood Coliseum on the Mississippi College campus.

It’s a good thing the Rebelettes were leading by 20 when the psuedo-meltdown began.

LA (40-3) missed nine straight free throws and were held without a field goal during the stretch, but held on to take the 70-53 win against Hillcrest Christian School.

The Rebelettes, who won their fourth consecutive state title last week, took control of the game late in the first quarter after three ties and four lead changes.

Hannah Peoples knocked down an NBA-range 3-pointer at the 2:56 mark to put the Rebelettes on top for good. The eighth-grader followed up the trey with a steal and layup 13 seconds later. The two baskets were part of a 14-3 run that stretched Leake’s lead to nine.

“This was a real good win for us,” said legendary Leake coach Doyle Wolverton. “We were so excited about winning that AA championship last week, I wasn’t sure how good we would do today. I thought were a little flat. About the second quarter we started spreading it out a little bit.”

Leake led by seven after the first period and allowed the Lady Cougars to get to within three before scoring the last nine points of the quarter.

Coming out of intermission with a 12-point lead, the Rebelettes didn’t let up in the third. LA played a nearly flawless quarter, missing only four shots but getting three back with offensive rebounds and turning the ball over only twice.

All of the Rebelettes’ scoring in the third quarter came courtesy of Peoples and Emily Kea as the duo combined for 19 points and added eight more points to the Leake cushion.

“I thought we did a really good job in the third quarter,” Wolverton said. “We came out and kind of ran them out of their press and made them go man-to-man. Once they were playing us man-to-man, I thought our sets gave them a lot of problems.”

Kea paced the Rebelettes with 29 points, while Peoples had 28, including a 3-for-4 day from beyond the arc.

Defensively, Kea also led the way for Leake as she had six of the team’s 15 steals. The Rebelettes held Hillcrest to 34.6 percent shooting on the afternoon, while knocking down just over half of their own shots.

Leake Academy will face a much tougher challenge as the tournament continues as the Rebelettes will play Class AAA state champion East Rankin Friday at 2:15 p.m. ERA is one of only two teams to defeat Leake this season, taking two of the three games the two teams played.