The Charles Henderson Lady Trojans battled hard, but came up just short in a 43-37 loss to 7A Hoover in the championship of the Hoover Big Orange Tournament on Thursday.

Mistakes made the difference.

“We just made a lot of mental mistakes is all,” said Trojans head coach Dyneshia Jones. “We played with six players during the game, and we made some mental mistakes.”

The Trojans were able to keep things close throughout the game and entered halftime even with the Bucs at 21-21.

In the second half fatigue caught up the Trojans and they couldn’t quite muster enough energy to get the win.

“I thought they were both mentally and physically exhausted,” Jones said. “We got into foul trouble. It a lessoned learned. We played a great school and six points is not bad considering the fouls and turnovers that we had.”

The Trojans were able to advance to the championship game by narrowly defeating Gadsden City 49-42 in the semifinals.

The Trojans played with a lack of depth after freshman Mykyia Milton went down with an injury in the opening quarter. All game long the Trojans would have to contend with two Division one prospects.

“We fought through it,” Jones said. “They have a couple D-I athletes with one of them going to South Carolina. “They had great shooters, but we did a good job and held them off.”

The Trojans were able to take control of the game thanks to the inside game of Davenport and Siler.

“It was the play of bigs,” Jones said. “We were able to feed Maori (Davenport) and Tatyana (Siler). It was hard for them to guard her because they had a lot of guards.

The Trojans will be back in action on December 27 when they take part in the Ballin Prep Invite in Birmingham.

The Trojans will take off for Christmas before hitting the court in preparations for the Ballin Prep Invitational in Birmingham which is scheduled to begin on December 27 and run through the 29^th.

“We are going to enjoy Christmas,” Jones said. “We are going to get back to practice and work on the basics. We have to get ready for our competition and play Charles Henderson Basketball.”