The Florala Lady Wildcats gave a strong effort, but fell to the Brantley Lady Bulldogs 50-39 in the Class 1A, Area 3 championship on Thursday night in Florala.

Passion Person got the Lady Bulldogs on the board first with a quick 3-pointer.

Florala’s Meredith Parker knocked down a 3-pointer of her own, but Person connected with two more 3-pointers to put Brantley up 9-3.

Sharae Coleman picked up a couple baskets for the Lady Wildcats, but Brantley was up 15-9 at the end of the first period.

The Lady Wildcats began to chip away at the Brantley lead when Ranisha Wright buried an NBA range 3-pointer.

Brantley got hot down heading into halftime as they went up 26-19.

Florala opened the third period strong with a bucket from Coleman and a 3-pointer from Laken Hadley.

A few minutes later, Coleman hit Hadley down low where she finished it off with a layup to cut the Brantley lead down to 30-29.

Brantley finished off the third period strong and went into the final period with a 39-32 lead.

Hadley opened the fourth period with a 3-pointer, but Brantley came charging down the final stretch.

Brantley was then able to hold off the Lady Wildcats for a 50-39 victory.

Coleman led the Lady Wildcats with 18 points.

With the loss, the Lady Wildcats will take on the winner between Pleasant Home and Georgiana in Monday’s sub-regional game.

“They had a great game plan,” Florala head coach David Bass said of Brantley. “They threw stuff at us that we had never seen before and we had to make some adjustments. We did well and shot the ball well, but we just came up a little short tonight. We fought hard all night. We never had a lead, but we stayed in the game.”