Lady Bulldogs rally, beat Southwest

Mississippi Gulf Coast rallied from down seven in the final minutes to win by that total Monday, pulling out an 81-74 win at Southwest in Summit.

Breannah McCullah (So., Edwards/Raymond) made the go-ahead bucket in the final minute to get to 18 points in addition to her 10 rebounds. Kayla Simmons (Fr., Brandon/Brandon) also had a double-double with 17 points and 13 rebounds.

"We're maturing," Gulf Coast coach Hope Adams said. "I've been putting a lot of pressure on our guards recently, and they stepped up tonight."

Allison Martin (Fr., Edwards/Raymond) led the Lady Bulldogs with 19 points, including shooting 3-for-5 from the 3-point line. Gulf Coast shot 41.2 percent from behind the arc. They also were 16-of-20 from the free throw line. Both were season highs.

"It's a huge difference when you're playing on the road against a well-coached team," Adams said. "We had some people step up and make some big shots."

After the Lady Bears took a 74-73 lead with just over a minute left, McCullah made a free throw-line jumper with 45.5 seconds left to give the Lady Bulldogs a 75-74 lead.

Gulf Coast made all six of its free throws from there on out to ice the win. Mia Goolsby (Fr., Greenville, S.C./Legacy Early College) made four, and Martin nailed two.

Goolsby had 15 points, including 5-for-9 from the field and her only free throw attempts were in the final minute.

The Bulldogs erased their late deficit with a change in defense.

"We were in our 2-3 (zone), but they got hot on the perimeter," Adams said. "We went into a man (defense). I told them we had to make one stop at a time. They stuck to the gameplan and made shots from the foul line after we got the lead."

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