FAIRHOPE, Ala.—This one wasn’t over until the final one-tenth of the final second ticked off as the final game-winning attempt fell short at the buzzer. That meant the game was settled 4.9 seconds earlier when Spanish Fort freshman Terrin Atkinson hit a mid-range jumper to give the Toros a 45-44 win at Fairhope High Tuesday night.

It was a bitter loss to the Pirates who led the visitors 44-40 with 54.8 seconds left in the game. Spanish Fort narrowed the gap when senior Toro Quinn Atkinson hit a 3-pointer with 30 seconds left to make it a one-point game 44-43. The younger Atkinson then grabbed a rebound at the Fairhope end, transitioned to big brother Quinn who then fed the ball to Baby Bro near the baseline for the go ahead.

Fairhope’s Davis Watson took the inbound pass and made the drive up court quickly but was forced to take a running desperation jumper as the clock ran out.

The Pirates led 16-13 after one quarter but trailed 27-23 at the half. After trimming the margin to a 31-30 SF lead FHS pulled ahead in the final period only to lose in the last five seconds.

“What an unbelievable finish,” said SFHS head coach Dru Powell. “It was about what I expected, close, a battle. But I’m so proud of my guys for not giving up. I know Rob (Fairhope head coach Robbie Robertson) feels the same about his. They all battled hard. Back and forth. We were just fortunate to make the last one. I think we did a pretty good job of handling the ups and downs, the good runs, the bad ones, too. That’s very important. Still, lots of areas to improve upon and considering how young our team is it was a very fine effort.”

Robinson said he was proud of the his kids, too, especially with six freshmen on the 10-man roster. Both teams will fill out more spots after football season.

“I told the guys after the game that we have to use this experience as a learning situation. And really, we have so many young players that just about everything is a learning situation. But they played hard. Came back. Didn’t quit. Did some things well, but we need to work on everything still. You can’t turn it over and you have to make free throws down the stretch. That’s how you win ball games. But I see us making progress and I believe we will make more.”

Quinn Atkinson led the floor with 12 points, Terrin Atkinson added 10 points, Cullen Pierce had eight, Kyle Lepley six and Chris Rose four. The Toros were 9-for-17 at the free-throw line.

Davis Watson led the Pirates with 11 points, Andrew Miller had eight, Trent Baggerly seven while Tevin Brown, Cameron Cortinas and Phillip Martin each added five. Fairhope made 9-of-19 free throws.

Fairhope will host a Tip-Off tournament Nov 14 and 16 and travel to Spanish Fort for a rematch at the Fort Nov. 19 at 7:30 p.m. SFHS will travel to Bayside Academy Tuesday for a 7:30 p.m. start.