Rochelle — If it wasn’t for bad luck, Wilcox High’s girls would seemingly have no luck at all.

Clinging to a 38-35 lead over neighboring Hawkinsville High with a minute left in their Saturday night clash, the Lady Patriots got outscored 7-5 in the final 60 seconds and thus suffered a ninth straight loss, 42-40.

The news turned out to be better for the Patriots who despite getting outscored in the first and last quarters did enough damage in the two periods between to register a 71-62 victory.

Neither Wilcox team will play again until Friday when they close out the regular season at Turner County in the make-up of a twin bill postponed near the start of the season due to the Patriots’ grid playoffs participation.

Hawkinsville 42, Wilcox 40

A 44-33 victor over the Lady Red Devils when they met in mid-December, the now 3-17 Lady Patriots entered the re-match with high hopes of snapping their losing skid and getting their first sweep of the campaign.

For a while, it looked like they might achieve that goal as by winning the third quarter 17-12 they erased earlier quarter deficits of 6-4 and 15-14 thus took a 31-27 advantage into the final stanza.

Hawkinsville began to foil Wilcox’s bid for revenge when Madison Little hit a three-pointer to tie matters at 38. Following an exchange of baskets that knotted the score at 40, the Lady Patriots committed a turnover.

It took the Lady Red Devils two attempts to successfully inbounds the ball before the final horn sounded as Bridget Tiller threw up a game-winning shot from near the free throw line.

“When a team is struggling as we have for most of the season, it just can’t seem to catch a break and that’s what happened to us tonight,” dejected Wilcox coach Santita Coon said afterwards.

Tyneshia Edwards and Kilyah White each pitched in 11 points for the winners as did Erica Jackson for the losers who in their heartbreaking defeat got another 10 from Tyonna Wright.

Score by Quarters

Hawkinsville High 6-9-12-15 — 42

Wilcox County 4-10-17-9 — 40

Scoring

Hawkinsville (42) — Kilyah White 11, Olivia Daniel 5, Bridget Tiller 6, Tyneshia Edwards 11, Brittany Hall 2, Madison Little 5, Melissa Smith.

Team totals: field goals 18; free throws 3 of 9 (33.3%); fouls 16; 3-pointers — White 1, Daniel 1, Hill 1; fouled out — Smith.

Wilcox County (40) — Dasjia Daniels 5, Tyonna Wright 10, Kadada Martin 5, Shantia Lawson 4, Jada Curry 3, Erica Jackson 11, Takayla Mahoganey 2, JaMircale Jones 2.

Team totals: field goals 15; free throws 6 of 12 (50%); fouls 10; 3-pointers — Jackson 2, Curry 1, Martin 1; fouled out — none.

Patriots 71, Red Devils 62

In extending their winning string to 10 games and reaching the 20-win mark for a fifth straight campaign, the Patriots used a torrid second period performance as the springboard to victory.

Trailing the Red Devils 16-15 after what coach George Kennedy felt was a sluggish start on the part of his team, Wilcox struck for 29 points in the next eight minutes to take a 44-29 edge at intermission.

When the Patriots won the third stanza 19-12 to go up by 22 at 63-41, a rout appeared to be in the makings. That was not to be the case, though, as the Red Devils came storming back to cut their final deficit to a single digit.

“We talk about and work on clock management all the time in practice, but then we tend to forget about it in an actual game just like we did tonight,” Kennedy said.

“Rather than being content to run off time and help preserve a big lead we held in the late going, we just went down and jacked up some ill-advised shots that allowed Hawkinsville to make a game of it there at the end.

“That’s the kind of streaky play we need to correct. Hopefully we’ll start doing so when we go to Turner County  (for a game in which the region 2-A championship will be on the line).”

Jonathan Howard poured in 29 points and Makail Grace pumped in 17 to lead Wilcox’s scoring against the Red Devils’ Ditalion Williams who matched the Patriots’ Howard point for point. Rashon Griggs sank another 10 in defeat.

Score by Quarters

Hawkinsville High 16-13-12-21 — 62

Wilcox County 15-29-19-8 — 71

Scoring

Hawkinsville (62) — Tay Lawson 7, P.J. Thompson 2, Terrel Collins 1, Ditalion Williams 29, Tyler Porter 2, Rashon Griggs 10, Thaddeus Ates 6, Warren Singletary 5.

Team totals: field goals 20; free throws 16 of 20 (80%); fouls 16; 3-pointers — Williams 5, Singletary 1; fouled out — Griggs.

Wilcox County (71) — Quinn Tisdol 4, Makail Grace 17, Larry Munford, Antwan Benjamin 5, Calvin Rawls 6, A.J. Benjamin 2, Jonathan Howard 29, Johnny Dwight 8.

Team totals: field goals 28; free throws 14 of 24 (58.3%); fouls 12; 3-pointers — Grace 1; fouled out — none.