Florala suffered a “strange” defeat to Samson on Monday night, falling 52-49 with 8.8 seconds still left on the clock.

The game was prematurely ended due to inclement weather. At the time, Samson was at the free-throw line after a foul from Florala’s Lavoris Ball.

“Before they handed the kid the ball to shoot, (the administration) had to call the game because of a tornado warning,” Florala coach Brad Garner said. “With Samson’s principal there, he decided that it would be best for his kids to go on and hit the road.”

Garner said the warning came as a result of a tornado touching down in Bradley, which is 25.1 miles west of Florala.

“(The tornado) was close enough to where you can’t put any lives in danger,” he said. “In hindsight, you could have finished the game, but you can’t take the chance.”

Before the game was called, the Wildcats were out of timeouts and could not set a game plan in motion to tie the game.

“You’d like to think that that kid was going to miss those free throws and we could come down and tie the ball game,” Garner said. “The chances of that happening are probably not that great, but it would sure have been nice to finish it.”

Florala led by as many as seven points in the second half before Samson retook the lead.

“We had one shot (to tie) where we had a good look at it,” Garner said. “We just missed a good shot there in the middle of the paint. He was open and we didn’t execute the pass.

“We’ve got to get better with little things like that,” he said. “I think that’ll come with maturity and age, but we’ll get there.”

Florala’s Zac Fleming led with 17 points and Hunter Oswald had 10.