BAY MINETTE, Alabama—The Lady Tigers rallied from a first-half deficit with an explosive third quarter to defeat visiting Fairhope 51-39 in a 6A Area 3 basketball race opener at Baldwin County High.

The Lady Pirates (2-3, 0-1) led 14-2 after the first quarter and 23-16 at the half, but BCHS (1-1, 1-0) went on a 26- 5 run to lead 42-28 heading into the final eight minutes of play.

Nakea McDougal scored 14 points to lead all and the Tigers while teammates Zatia Pullum added 13 and Denosha Maye hit seven of her eight points in the pivotal third period for the Tigers. Haley Melton and Sidney White scored 11 each and Imani Kirksey finished with six for the Pirates.

"It's big to get an early area win anyway you can," said BCHS head coach Robert Wills. "But I'm really proud of how we did it coming back and executing what we've practiced. Quarters like that make it fun to be a coach. I think that's as good a quarter of basketball as any team I've coached. Nor better, but as good. And we're planning to run a lot this year. With the girls we have we feel like they can go on offense and still maintain good defense up and down the court. I think with this being just our second game, it took a little time to get comfortable with this new style and Fairhope took advantage like good teams do. But once we got in the flow of things I think the energy and excitement and being at home all worked in our favor. And of course we shot well, rebounded and hustled on defense. Nakea is a true player out there. She has that mentality of wanting the ball and the ability to do something with it. We missed her last year (due to injury) but it's good to see her playing at this level again and I think she's a more mature player as well. And we need that leadership. I hope it's rubbing off on some of my other players and we can build on it."

Fairhope head coach Jessica Webb, who lost all but one starter to graduation is fielding a starting quintet of nearly varsity-free-experienced freshmen and sophomores with one senior and some injured potential starters.

"Well, we are young and we're having trouble finishing. It's a maturity issue at this point and the only way to deal with it is to just get out there and play and get more experience and work on improving at the same time. So, in pressure situations like the third quarter tonight, we're not responding well. We have talent, but it's new to high school and some who would start are hurt right now. But we started out more aggressive tonight, but fell flat. We've done that the last three games now. Taken the lead early and then couldn't hold it. We beat Spanish Fort and beat St. Paul's and then lost the last three in the last quarter. It's really the third quarter that we've been losing and then we let it turn into a fourth-quarter game. But I know these young ladies and I know they don't like to lose. We're going to work on pushing through the pressure and maintaining what we do best, play aggressively but smart basketball at both ends. Consistency is always a key and we have work to do."

BCHS travels to play at Robertsdale Saturday at 6 p.m. Fairhope will host the Tigers Dec. 7 at 6 p.m.