A solid regular season for the Fort Walton Beach girls basketball team came to an end Thursday night as Pine Forest handed the Lady Vikings their first home loss of the year, 35-30.
- The Lady Eagles, fresh off a 46-point victory over Choctaw on Tuesday, carried that momentum into Thursday’s matchup, storming out to a 9-2 run to open the game.
Fort Walton stopped the bleeding late in the first quarter when Anecia Stallworth converted an and-one to cut the deficit to four, but La’Paris Hines answered with a bucket to make it 11-5.
A defensive stalemate followed until Alexis Smith converted back-to-back buckets to make it a one-possession game. Janelle Dixon added a free throw to pull the Lady Vikings within one at 11-10.
The teams traded the lead through a frantic stretch. Harmony Lee stole a Keyarsten Lewis pass and finished a give-and-go with Stallworth to put Fort Walton ahead. Lee added a free throw after a technical foul on Pine Forest to make it 13-11.
- Pine Forest’s Laila Snow answered with a steal and layup to tie the game, then hit two free throws in the final seconds to give the Lady Eagles a 15-13 lead. Stallworth beat the halftime buzzer with a bucket to knot the score at 15.
Snow opened the third quarter with a bucket, but Chloe Burgos responded to tie it. Aniyah Boyd gave Fort Walton the lead with just over four minutes left in the quarter before Snow found Amoni Lewis for the tying bucket.
Chamyah McDole’s steal and score put Pine Forest back ahead. Boyd tied it again and drew a foul but missed the free throw that would have completed the three-point play.
Hines answered with a bucket, and the Lady Eagles never trailed again. Snow hit a 3-pointer to push the lead to 26-23 heading into the fourth quarter.
Boyd opened the final period with two free throws to cut the deficit to one, but Za’Kyiah Shaw-Rease responded with a bucket to push the lead back to three. An offensive foul on Boyd gave Pine Forest possession, and Shaw-Rease converted again to extend the lead to five.
The Lady Eagles clamped down defensively from there, forcing crucial turnovers to seal the 35-30 victory and hand Fort Walton its fourth loss of the season.
Lady Vikings head coach Mercedez Claybrone said the loss could serve as a wake-up call heading into the playoffs.
“I think it’s definitely something that we needed,” Claybrone said. “The girls started to get complacent.”
Claybrone said the loss gave her team a different perspective after weeks of winning despite not always executing fundamentals.
- “To be able to see we don’t do those things we need to do to win — like take care of the basketball, like dominate on the boards, like slide your feet on defense — and you fall short five points, that’s something they definitely needed to see,” she said.
Fort Walton concludes the regular season at 18-4 and appears locked into the No. 2 seed behind Bishop Kenny regardless of district results.
Pine Forest finishes 14-8 and will have a first-round bye in district playoffs, where they will face the winner of Choctaw-Escambia.
