The Lady Bulldogs overcame droughts of sickness Thursday night to knock Hillcrest-Evergreen out of the area tournament in Andalusia, 71-46.

The first quarter was the best for Andalusia (22-2), who got on board early and pulled ahead 9-2 with 4:29 left.

With 30.8 seconds left, that lead increased to 20-7 for the Lady Bulldogs. The Lady Jaguars only managed to score 11 points in the first quarter.

Andalusia coach Bennie Shellhouse said, despite the sicknesses on the team, they had some fight in them.

“We’ve had a lot of people sick,” Shellhouse said. “Tuesday we had eight at practice, (Wednesday) we had 10 at practice, so we’ve had a lot of people with viruses.

“We just looked sluggish playing, but I thought we fought hard,” he said. “We kind of got things away from us there, but we fought hard. That was the biggest thing. We played well the first quarter and then fatigue got to us.”

In the second quarter, Andalusia put up 16 points compared to Hillcrest’s 11 to put the score at 38-23.

Heading into the third quarter, Andalusia shot out to a 43-25 lead early and cruised from there. Hillcrest could not keep up with Andalusia as the Lady Bulldogs scored another 23 points in the fourth quarter.

One thing Shellhouse said he learned from the game Thursday night was that his defense had a lack of execution.

“We’ve kind of digressed in our defensive play a little bit and we weren’t real sharp to the ball (Thursday night),” Shellhouse said. “We’ve got to improve on that before Monday night. Thomasville’s a great opponent and we’ve had two close games with them.”

Shellhouse said his team would be back at practice today to get ready for Thomasville.

“We’re going to practice (today) and then we’ll get back on it over the weekend and just see what happens,” he said.

The leading scorers for Andalusia were Alexis Horton with 17 points, Amber Anderson with 15, Anjelica White with 11 and Erica King with nine.

The Lady Bulldogs were 24-for-46 from the free throw line.

Andalusia’s next game will be Monday night against Thomasville.

Tip off in Andalusia is at 5:30 p.m.