East Mississippi Community College's Maddie Riley breaks away from Jones County Junior College defender toward the basket Thursday night.

SCOOBA — Taylor Lattimore didn’t think the first one was going in.

With 1.5 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, and the East Mississippi women’s basketball team down by three, Lattimore caught an inbounds pass from the sideline and launched an off-balanced, desperation heave at the basket several feet beyond the 3-point line.

As time expired and the buzzer sounded, Lattimore’s hail mary found nothing but net, leveling the score with No. 10 Jones and sending Thursday’s MACJC championship game into overtime.

Lattimore raised her arms from half court with disbelief as Keyes T. Currie Coliseum was sent into a frenzy.

“Not at all,” Lattimore said on if she thought the shot would fall. “It was just like, ‘Oh my God. God is real.’ That’s all I could think.”

But Lattimore wasn’t done. 

Down by three again with 2.8 seconds to play in overtime, Lattimore hauled in another inbounds pass and let go another shot from deep, which once more dropped in and evened the score with 0.02 ticks left, extending the contest into double overtime.

“When I let it go, I knew it was in,” Lattimore said. “I felt it right on my fingers.”

The Lady Lions had all the momentum from that point on and outscored the Lady Bobcats 18-4 in the second overtime to secure an 87-73 victory and claim the MACJC championship on its home floor. 

“This has been 19 years in the making,” EMCC head coach Sharon Thompson said. “Two things I told the kids was, ‘Keep fighting, don’t give up.’ I’m intense and tough in the way I coach, and our kids this year have done an exceptional job accepting my tough coaching.”

Lattimore finished with a game-high 27 points for East Mississippi (24-2) on 6 of 18 shooting and added five rebounds and three steals in 45 minutes on the floor. She also converted 11 of 13 free throws.

Ja’Mia Hollings scored 19 points on 9 of 16 shooting for the Lady Lions and grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds for her 14th double-double of the season. Tye Metcalf tallied 18 points on 6 of 15 shooting in 44 minutes, and Maddie Riley also earned a double-double with 10 points and 13 boards. 

East Mississippi earned its first state title since the 1983-84 season in picking up its 19th-consecutive victory.

The Lady Lions opened the game with a 6-0 lead but soon found themselves down 16-12 after the first quarter. Topazia Hawkins then drilled a corner 3 and hit two free throws on her team’s next possession in the first minute of the second period to give EMCC its last lead until 1:14 to play in the fourth as Jones made four perimeter shots to build a seven-point advantage and lead 34-29 at halftime.

The Lady Bobcats scored 10 points off 11 Lady Lions turnovers in the first half.

“The first key we had to winning the game was no unforced errors, and we had a lot of those, but we kept digging and digging,” Thompson said. “All the turnovers we had in the first half, those were all unforced, so that was the main ingredient to beating them tonight. To even put yourself in a position to beat them is to have no unforced errors, and we didn’t do that as much in the two overtimes.”

Jones (21-4) extended its lead to eight early in the third quarter, but East Mississippi battled back by stringing together eight straight points to tie the game 39-39 midway through the period. The Lady Lions couldn’t pull ahead, however, and the Lady Bobcats took a 45-41 edge into the fourth frame, where they led by seven early on. A 3-pointer from Hawkins, a steal and fastbreak bucket by Metcalf and another 3 by Lattimore got the Lady Lions within one, 53-32, with 4:40 to play. 

Down 55-54 with less than two minutes left, Riley fed a pass to Hollings under the basket, which Hollings finished at the rim to give EMCC its first lead of the second half. Jones answered with an unassisted shot from beyond the arc with less than a minute to play to go back up by three.

The Lady Lions missed a quick two-point attempt and fouled the Lady Bobcats on the rebound with 11.5 seconds left. Jones made 1 of 2 at the line. Lattimore was then fouled on a 3-point attempt and made 2 of 3 free throws. Jones was subsequently fouled and made one of two shots at the line. Thompson called a timeout with 1.5 seconds left, setting up Lattimore’s game-tying shot.

“She didn’t shoot it well all night, she hasn’t shot it well the whole tournament, but she’s made some big shots for us,” Thompson said of Lattimore’s bucket. “She came through when we needed her.”

The Lady Bobcats led 67-63 with 2:49 left in the first overtime when Riley was punched in the nose by Jones’ Daja Woodard during a scrum for the ball under the basket, which led to Woodard’s ejection. 

After the two squads exchanged free throws, East Mississippi once again found itself down by three. A 3-point attempt from Hawkins was blocked, then Metcalf’s shot from the perimeter on the offensive rebound missed, but in a fight for the ensuing rebound a jump ball was called, giving the Lady Lions possession with 2.8 seconds left. 

Lattimore then came up in the clutch once again.

“First, I had to keep my composure. My teammates were talking to me, saying it was okay,” Riley said of the punch and ejection of Woodard. “When she got thrown out, I was like, ‘Yes, this is our time to take the lead. This is our time to win,’ and we won.” 

Jones went cold in double overtime as Metcalf and Hollings combined to score 15 of EMCC’s 18 points in the frame. The Lady Lions finished the evening with a 40% shooting percentage, going 7-for-27 on 3-pointers and knocking down 20 of 27 free throws. 

LaMiracle Sims scored a team-high 22 points for Jones, Woodard had 18 and and Keyara Jones added 13. The Lady Bobcats shot 35% from the field and went 7-for-13 at the free-throw line.  

East Mississippi secures a No. 1 seed in next week’s Region 23 Tournament with the win. The Lady Lions won that tournament back in 2009. 

“I was crying. We worked too hard for this,” Riley said. “Taylor’s a good shooter, and she makes those shots all the time in practice, so I knew with the ball in her hand she was going to make it. I had faith in her.”