SPANISH FORT — The 5A Area 2 champion Lady Toros of Spanish Fort came up short of upsetting the No. 1 ranked Faith Academy Lady Rams Saturday. Faith, 29-1, moved on to the South Regional tournament at the University of South Alabama's Mitchell Center in Mobile where they met Eufala Wednesday morning.

The 63-45 loss was a heartbreaker for Spanish Fort's girls who completed a perfect 6-0 area sweep and ended the 2009-10 season at 22-7 overall. SFHS had lost to Faith twice before by larger margins but kept the Lady Rams in sight and stayed within eight points for most of this game until the final four minutes.

Lady Toros coach George Brown was proud of his team and especially his seniors. " We have great seniors," he said. "Katy Edwards, Princess Winston, Angela Francis, Terra Reeves and Nikki Riley played their last game here tonight as Lady Toros and I'm very proud of them. They have been great leaders for our basketball team all year and carry on a great winning tradition that we have here at Spanish Fort.

"I want to give credit to coach (Woodie) Head and Faith basketball. They are a great team and a class act. They did a great job and we wish them luck in regionals."

Brown said that lack of bench depth and the Rams' relentless pressure defense just wore his team down toward the end.

"We weren't very deep off the bench and I knew that going in. We have a lot of young girls on the bench and (Faith) pretty much beat us up and down the floor. But I'm very proud of our effort. I told them in the locker room (after the game) you can go home tonight and look yourself in the mirror and know that you gave it everything you had and from what I've observed each and everyone of you can do that."

Reeves finished with 13 points, Allison Whitley added 10, Brianna Owens eight, Elissa Vande Waa seven and Riley five for the Lady Toros. Ester Stokely led the game with 21, Jasmine Rhodes had 15 and Tatyana Haywood 13 for Faith.