ITTA BENA, Mississippi – Thursday afternoon was the hottest day of the year at Mississippi Valley State University, with an outside temperature of 84 degrees; inside the gym, the temperature soared due to a broken air conditioning system as Round Three of the 4A State Playoff games started with the Lady Braves facing the same team they put out of the playoffs last year, the Pontotoc Lady Warriors.
Unfortunately, the result this year was not the same as last year, with the Lady Braves falling to the Lady Warriors 44 – 56.
This year, the Lady Warriors came with a score to settle after the Lady Braves ended Pontotoc’s run for the Championship in 2022 in front of Pontotoc’s home crowd.
The Lady Braves brought a large fanbase to the playoff match even though it was three hours from home and the game started in the afternoon, but the crowd could not bring the energy needed to help push the Braves to a win. 
“Unfortunately, for us, it was a bad night to have a bad night.,” Head Coach Brian Middleton said. “Our community really supported us again this season and created a great environment for us at Valley. I really hate we came up short.”
The Lady Braves had possession when a loose ball went out of bounds on them and gave Pontotoc the ball; they capitalized on this turnover as Alayna Ball, their leading scorer of the night with 13 points, scored the first points of the game with a three-pointer.
Both teams struggled as they made bad passes and could not score, but the Lady Warriors took advantage of the Lady Braves’ errors more, as this helped keep Pontotoc in the lead.
To end the first quarter, the Lady Braves were down by eight points and had to make adjustments to take control of the game.
The second quarter did not end any better than the first quarter, with Pontotoc holding the Lady Braves to only scoring eight points while they scored 15 points.
Pontotoc exposed the Lady Braves’ weakness and kept scoring on backdoor cuts, trip after trip down the court.
Once the second quarter ended, the Lady Braves had Abbi Reed, Lila Sanderson, and Reese Moore in foul trouble early; Reed and Sanderson had two fouls while Moore had three fouls, and Pontotoc only had two players with two fouls each, Kori Grace Ware and Mackenzie McGuirt.
When the Lady Braves emerged from halftime, they started the quarter off immediately getting on the board as Zareli Ozuna came across the half-court line from the inbound pass; she moved the ball to Sanderson, who passed to Reed under the goal, and Reed was fouled as she scored then made her and 1.
The tides appeared to turn for the Lady Braves in the third quarter as they outscored Pontotoc and held them to 9 points while the Lady Braves put up 14 points.
By the end of the game, Pontotoc outscored, out-rebounded, out-defended, and simply outplayed the Lady Braves.
“Unfortunately, you can’t play that way this time of year,” Middleton said. “We will find a way to take that next step.”
In a game where every point matters, the Lady Braves’ two leading scorers, Moore and Ozuna, had eleven points each.
Now that season has ended for the Lady Braves with a 29 – 3 record, they took a small break and were back in the gym preparing for their run for the Championship in 2024.