Dacula and Lanier, two teams ranked among the best in the state of Georgia, met for fifth place and Dacula came away with a thrilling 51-47 victory.
The winning Falcons trailed 45-41 when Lazaria Spearman banked in a short-range shot with 3:50 left, then followed that with a free throw a couple of minutes later to close the gap to 45-44. After a Lanier miss, Nyla Rose Moore drove for a layup to put the Falcons ahead 46-45, and they closed out the 7-0 run when Haneefat Adanijo came up with a steal and a driving layup with 1:48 left to up the lead to 48-45.
The Longhorns got back within one with 26 seconds left when Christabel Ezumah hit a pair of free throws but they could get no closer.
Dacula was led by Spearman with 13 points and 16 rebounds. Keyanna Gibbs scored 11 and Jin Sileo netted a dozen. Moore had five steals and Adanijo got five assists.
Lanier’s Longhorns got 19 points from Zuiyah Davis and 12 from Morgan Manley. Christabel Ezumah had 11 rebounds.
LANIER (47): Davis 0-0 1-2 1, Forte 0-0 0-0 0, Campbell 1-3 1-2 3, Benjamin 0-0 0-0 0, Ezumah 2-5 2-4 6, Lopez 0-8 0-0 0, Manley 6-13 0-1 12, Zuriyah Davis 7-14 4-8 19, Williams 2-5 0-0 4, Bryan 1-1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 19-49 8-17 47.
DACULA (51): Adanijo 3-10 3-4 9, Jin Sileo 5-13 1-2 12, Moore 2-7 0-0 4, Keyanna Gibbs 5-9 1-2 11, Lazaria Spearman 5-10 3-4 13, Ananthasane 0-2 0-0 0, Fasesin 0-1 2-2 2. TOTALS: 20-52 10-14 51.
3-Point Goals: LHS—1 (Davis). DHS—1 (Sileo).
Score by quarters:
Lanier 8 14 21 4—47
Dacula 21 7 7 16—51
