One night after defeating Pineville (7-7) in a 51-50 thriller in the 13th Region All “A” Classic tournament semifinals, the Middlesboro Lady Jackets (7-11) rode their wave of momentum to their fourth-straight victory by defeating the Williamsburg Lady Jackets (10-6), 44-38, to win the championship.

As the champion of the 13th Region, Middlesboro advances to play the champion of region 9, on January 23 at 8:30 a.m. in McBrayer Arena located at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond.

“I am so proud of our team,” said coach Scott Overbay. “The leadership on the team has been awesome. It’s hard to put into words how happy I am, and how proud I am as well. We’ve been working hard on correcting some of the things that we’ve been doing wrong throughout the season, and I think we are getting to where we want to be, and it shows.”

Baylee Woody scored 14 points and Grace Gent added nine, leading Middlesboro in scoring. Williamsburg was led by Lillie Hall with 20 and Madison Chapman with 10.

Middlesboro had five players in the scoring column in the first quarter of the game to lead a very balanced scoring attack. Baylee Woody and Kailey Owens led the way early on with three points each in the first period. Brittany Davis, Grace Gent and Kirsten Keith added two each, to contribute to the Middlesboro scoring effort.

The Middlesboro defense allowed only five points in the first quarter, outscoring Williamsburg 14-5. Middlesboro’s offense went stagnant in the second quarter, with their only points coming from the free-throw line. Hall scored eight of Williamsburg’s 12 points in the second quarter. Williamsburg outscored Middlesboro 12-3 in the period to knot the game at 17 points each heading into the locker room at halftime.

The Middlesboro defense played solid in the third quarter holding Williamsburg to six points, but had problems getting going on offense scoring only nine points. Heading into the final quarter, Middlesboro held a slight 26-23 edge over Williamsburg.

Both offenses played their best periods of the game in the fourth. Woody anchored the Middlesboro offense in the final period with eight of the Lady Jackets’ 18 points in the fourth. Hall led Williamsburg’s last quarter effort with six of the Lady Jackets’ 15 points.

Outscoring Williamsburg 18-15 in the final quarter, Middlesboro secured a six-point victory and the 13th Region All “A” Classic championship.

“I think this is going to help our confidence immensely moving forward,” said Overbay. “Coming out of some of these games over the Christmas break, I felt like we were getting closer and closer. I think we will be able to build off of this, and continue to get better. We won our first district game since 2012 earlier this season, and I thought that helped our confidence a lot as well. I can’t wait to get back into district play.”

Middlesboro’s next game is on the road against Knox Central on Thursday. Williamsburg will be back in action against Barbourville at home on Thursday.

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Middlesboro (44): Baylee Woody 14, Grace Gent 9, Kailey Owens 7, Brittany Davis 6, Lakyn King 6, Kirsten Keith 2.

Williamsburg (38): Lillie Hall 20, Madison Chapman 10, Racheal Gibson 4, Zoe Williams 3, Kaylee Graham 1.