Stratford girls use crucial run in final minutes to defeat Tattnall 65-46 in region play

The Stratford Eaglettes continued their season-long dominance Monday night, overcoming an early eight-point deficit with impressive runs in the second half to defeat the Tattnall Trojans 65-46 in a home region game.

The Eaglettes went down 11-3 near the end of the first quarter, but a scoring barrage dug them out of the hole in two minutes. They never looked back after that, breaking out in the second half and scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter.

Kaliya Walker led Stratford with 16 points, 14 of which came in the second half as the Eaglettes got her the ball inside the paint for some easy looks beneath the basket.

“She’s been a great player for us since last year, she’s been slumping a little this year, and not for lack of effort, she’s been putting in the work. Everything kind of clicked tonight for her like it did last year, and I was proud of her play against two good post players inside for Tattnall,” Stratford head coach Ed Smith said after the game. “If she plays like that every night, we’re gonna be pretty good… when we get that, I feel pretty good about us.”

Despite the explosive final quarter, Tattnall kept the game within reach, whittling into the lead to make it 48-41 with about five minutes to play and keeping pace for a few minutes. Then, with the score at 53-45 with about 3:30 remaining, the Eaglettes went on a 12-1 run to finish the game in lethal fashion.

“Tattnall did a great job cutting it to seven, I thought we played pretty well all night but we let them stay in it with some runs. Give them credit, they shot the ball well all night, especially from the perimeter,” Smith said. “But down the stretch we turned the defense up and get enough turnovers and get some baskets to get it into double figures again.”

Stratford’s Camiyah Hudson had 15 points to follow Walker, while Da’Laila Lowe had 13.

The Eaglettes’ defense inside was suffocating, as typical Tattnall scoring threats Annamary Talcott and Kennedy Walton silenced. 

The Trojans’ guard play kept them in the contest all night. Sophomore Emma Hicks finished with 14 points, including a trio of three-pointers. Freshman Sarah Phillips followed with 12 points and played with serious hustle all night, regularly laying out for loose balls and flying out of bounds in pursuit of steals or errant passes.

“We’re really young at the guards, our seniority is in our post play. We had a hard time with the pressure, we had 30-plus turnovers. But even though we did that, it was a seven-point game with a few minutes left,” Tattnall head coach Matt Chambless said. “But with those young players, they’ve been getting better and better all year long. We didn’t know what to expect coming into the season.”

That improvement came as a result of a lot of adversity, Chambless said.

“We played the number one team in 4A, the number one team twice in 3A and 2A — we’re battle tested. If we can figure out the pressure and how to handle the ball better, I really like how we played the rest of the game.”

Stratford improved to 16-2 overall and 5-1 in the region with the win. The Eaglettes are in second in GIAA 4A/3A District 6 behind only Piedmont Academy, who beat Stratford 62-55 earlier this month.

Tattnall fell to 9-8 overall and 3-3 in region play. The Trojans are third in the region behind the Eaglettes and Cougars.