Lady Conquistador seniors Bresha Cole and Tiffany Martin concluded their time with the blue-and-gold as Olive Branch fell to the host Lady Chargers, 51-37, in a first round game.

Conquistador senior Tevin Moore saw his playing career cut short in a different kind of fall as he came down hard on the court during the first half of Olive Branch’s 64-56 win over the Chargers. Moore reinjured his knee and had to be carried off the court. The 6-4 senior originally injured his knee against Byhalia on Dec. 11.

“Tevin’s done,” said Quistor head coach Nick Coln. “It hurts big-time to lose your leading scorer and your second best rebounder.”

In the girls’ game, the Lady Quistors led the low-scoring affair, 11-6, after one quarter. At the half, the score was tied at 17.

“We just couldn’t make a shot,” Lady Quistor head coach Eric Rombaugh observed. “We were missing some shots that normally we would’ve hit.

“I felt like (the team) played hard and played with heart,” he continued, “but you’ve got to make your shots and we just didn’t make the shots.”

Rombaugh, who said he especially felt bad for his two seniors, added that he hoped his younger players would use the loss as a learning experience.

“Hopefully our young ones will learn from it,” he said. “They wanted to know if we could practice (Thursday) to get ready for next season.

“It wasn’t as much what Southaven did as what we didn’t do,” Rombaugh noted.

Martin paced the Lady Quistors with 12 points, followed by Tiesha Tunstall, 10; Cole, nine; Kaelin Kneeland, three; Jasmine Cunningham, two; and Shae Matthews, one.

Brianna Williams and Jasmine Joyner hit double figures for Southaven with 15 and 10, respectively.

The Quistors fared better in their first-round game against Southaven, although it came at a high cost as Moore suffered a season-ending knee injury in the first half.

“I told them at halftime that somebody’s got to step up,” Coln recalled. “I thought Kadeem (Cole) really stepped up (17 points, 10-plus rebounds).

“D.J. (Biggs) has been playing good, and Tristan (Wakefield) has done a good job,” he continued. “We played about 11 guys; it was probably the best all-around effort we’ve had all year.”

The game was a back-and-forth battle throughout the first three quarters, with Olive Branch holding a precarious five-point (18-13) lead after one period, a four-point (29-25) advantage at the half and a three-point (43-40) lead after three quarters.

After being held scoreless (three missed free throws) in the first half, Cole asserted himself in the second half. The 6-3 junior forward scored six points in the third and 11 in the fourth to help Olive Branch defeat the Chargers for the third time this season.

Jaylon Moore and and Biggs were also in double figures with 16 apiece. Rounding out the scoring were LaDarius Waits, nine; Wakefield, four; and Adrian Brown, two.

Southaven’s Lou Johnson also scored 17 points in the contest. Domanique Harris was the game’s leading scorer with 19.

Because of the winter weather that hit the Mid-South earlier this week, the division tournament’s first-round was shortened from two days to one. Four games were played on Feb. 10, with Horn Lake defeating DeSoto Central in boys’ and girls’ action on Wednesday afternoon.

On Friday night, Southaven and Horn Lake meet for the girls’ title while Olive Branch and Horn Lake square off for the boys’ crown. The Quistors are 0-2 this season against the Eagles.

“Although we played as well as we did with Tevin out,” Coln noted, “Horn Lake beat us twice with Tevin in the lineup.

“We changed some things each of the two times we’ve played them this year, and we’re going to change some things this time,” he added. “Whenever anybody plays us, they play their hardest – when we watch an opponent, we have to look at what they do and not how hard they play because they play 10 times harder against us.”

Friday night’s games are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.