KINGSLAND – Rondesha Williams says we truly don’t know the best out of Region 1-7A in girls basketball until championship day.

That was Friday, the place was Camden County High school, and Williams’ Lady Packers are the best.

After all, they needed to get back at Tift County High for last year’s semifinal loss … yes, it was Tift County’s Lady Blue Devils taking on Colquitt County after two straight tournaments wins over Camden (at Lowndes Tuesday) and Lowndes (at Camden Thursday). And it was not easy.

Janiah Ellis made all six of her free throws in the fourth quarter, and Williams saw the Lady Blue Devils miss shot after shot in the final two minutes with only a slim lead. Behind Ellis’ 17 points and five 3-pointers made by Eriyona Stokes, the top 10 ranked Colquitt girls won 49-43 to go into the GHSA 7A championship tournament as Region 1’s top seed.

“People don’t understand that the records don’t mean anything in our region,” said Williams. “We fight day in, day out in south Georgia. Tifton. Lowndes. Camden. (Us). On any given night, any of us could be region champs. It’s a dogfight every night.

“I told my girls coming in this is for my three seniors. They were sitting behind the Big 6 for so long and never got an opportunity to shine. I told them this season is their season to shine and shine bright. Every night they led us on and off the floor. They were hungry and stayed humbled, and they fought hard and were able to put away the victory.”

“Everybody said we wouldn’t make it, but we did,” said senior Tionna Hunt. “With the good coaches we have, we made it.”

Hunt spent the better part of her Colquitt career as a role player as Diamond Hall and Za’Nautica Downs scored well over 1,000 career points and won All-Region honors.

The seniors are Stokes, Tim’mya Sanders and Hunt, who had 10 points and some shining defensive moments against a big matchup problem for Colquitt County in the middle. That was Tift County 6-1 junior center Jamia Level, who led her team with 12 points and was unstoppable getting rebounds.

“We couldn’t match up with her, but my girls play with a big heart,” said Williams.

“We had our bumps, but we managed to fight through it,” said Hunt.

Before Level could take control of the backboards, Colquitt County had five offensive rebounds in the opening period. It was Hunt putting back 2 on a second-chance to start the Lady Packers on a 11-0 run that essentially decided the contest. The girls were looking for a lot of firsts in the game at this time, and Stokes made the first 3 from a corner. With 2:01 on the quarter clock, Hunt had the first takeaway points from her pick-pocket steal; it was a three-point play for 11-4.

Stokes and Hunt later sank 3-balls each to take the game into the second period 17-8 in their favor.

From there, it was a battle to keep Tift County from a similar type of run that would wipe out all of that work.

Ellis scored 3 at 5:33 of the second period. Tift went almost five minutes with only two points, then Cali Conner sunk a 3 at 3:20. The Lady Blue Devils had some momentum going to get the margin back down to nine.

It was Hunt’s steal that brought control back to Colquitt, and through a patient set on offense Sanders put in some points from 3-point land. That made it 26-17 at 1:32 before the half.

The remaining time saw the Lady Blue Devils become productive with Annah Daniels’ put-back and San Graddic running the floor after two missed foul shots. With that, Colquitt looked at a 26-21 halftime edge.

The Lady Packers had some hot hands to open the second half, two made 3-pointers with one coming off a steal. That was the response to the opening put-back from Graddic. But when it came to scoring from the offensive glass, the second half was Level’s show. She was just too big to stop on the rebound bringing the margin back to five, 34-29.

So away from the basket, Colquitt drew a charging foul here and caused a turnover there. Ellis was certainly able to outrun Level and get her side’s lead back to nine, 38-29.

Tift let two good scoring chances go to waste at the end of the third, and the fourth period began with a 40-32 score. Hunt began that quarter causing a turnover against Level, and later she blocked a shot. Level’s next second-chance bucket came at 4:06, and at 2:27 Conner sank a third-chance 3. With two minutes to go and the Lady Blue Devils on the break, Conner followed for 2 more cutting the lead to six, 47-41. While the Lady Packers were looking for a ‘put-away’ basket that never came, Tift was still on that offensive glass. Its final field goal, second-chance, was at 1:07.

Leading 47-43, Colquitt’s girls were able to run the clock down to 27.8 seconds before Ellis was fouled. She made both free throws, and the Tift girls shot and shot with no more results.

It was a sweep of all three games against Tift for the Lady Packers, and winning three over the same team is one of the daunting tasks in high school basketball. This was a Tift team that had its issues early with injuries and young new starters but turned out to maybe be the team you don’t want to face with a title on the line.

“All of us are good teams and we are going to compete against one another every time,” said Williams. “I don’t get into that record stuff. I want to step on the court and play basketball. Lowndes beat us (in the regular-season finale) by 23. Who would have thought that?

“But we won it, region champs. We are going to go to the state playoffs at home. We need our fans in the gym to support us.”

“We have to keep grinding … take no breaks and keep doing what we’re doing,” said Hunt.