BRANDON — Meridian High Basketball coach Ron Norman has had a lot success in road games.

 

At Brandon, not as much.

 

That changed a little bit as the Wildcats held on to beat the Bulldogs 55-54 in an overtime thriller in a key Region 3-7A contest on Tuesday.

 

Brandon (16-11, 8-2 Region 3-7A) has already clinched the No. 1 seed in the district tournament next week and Northwest Rankin is the No. 2 seed. The winner of the Meridian-Pearl game on Friday night will clinch the No. 3 seed in the district tournament, which is at Pearl next week.

 

“It’s been a tough year and a rebuilding year. With 13 wins with the schedule we’ve played is tough. Proud of our kids,” said Norman. “The kids have resilience, they play hard and don’t care who gets the glory and has a chance to be pretty good. We can shock some people.”

 

It was a back-and-forth game.

 

The Wildcats held a slim 15-13 lead at the end of the first quarter. Brandon ended the first half on 8-0 run to take a 28-22 lead at halftime.

 

Midway through the third quarter Meridian went on a 7-0 run to tie the game at 31-31 and eventually the game was tied 37-37 heading into the fourth quarter.

 

In the fourth quarter Meridian’s Adrian Davis hit a three-pointer to give the Wildcats a 49-47 lead with just over a minute to go, but Brandon’s Braelyn Bailey hit a lay-up and was fouled with 3.1 seconds left but missed the free throw so the game was tied 49-49 and went to overtime.

 

In the extra four minutes the Wildcats outlasted the Bulldogs 6-5 and took a 55-53 lead with 24 seconds left as Deontae Hopper hit a pair of free throws.

 

Brandon’s Elijah Morey hit one-of-two free throws with 3.6 seconds left to cut the Meridian lead to 55-54.

 

After the Wildcats missed a pair of free throws the last second heave for the Bulldogs fell short.

 

Hopper and Demontae Powe each had 12 points to lead Meridian, while Joe Horne and Davis each added 11 points for the Wildcats (13-10, 6-3).

 

“Games like this are only getting us right for next week, and we know what everybody got just proud of the kids,” Norman said. “I’ve been the coach at Meridian for nine years and have only won here twice.”

 

Bailey had a game-high 15 points to lead Brandon, while Morey and Josiah Jackson each added 10 points for the Bulldogs.

 

“We knew it was going to be a tough cause our best player has had the flu the last three days, but our other guys had opportunities, and they didn’t cash in,” said Brandon coach Fred Barnes. “Got to learn to put games away at the free throw line and we’ve now done that twice in district games. We feeling pretty good about ourselves heading into district tournament if we can get healthy.”