Greenville - The Lady Patriots from Pike were only down by two heading into the fourth period against Morgan, but the Patriots couldn't find the bottom of the basket, shooting 24 percent from the field on their way to a 42-29 loss to the Senators.

Leading by two late in the third quarter Morgan, last year's area champions, utilized a spread offense, which seemed to take the Patriots out of the flow of the game.

"We didn't really have a problem with them spreading the floor," said Lady Patriots' head coach Robert Hawkins. "What it came down to was they had four or five senior starters who really gave them some good leadership on the floor. We played good in the first half, we just didn't hit our shots in the second half."

The teams split the regular season and Morgan (17-4) head coach Rick Blevins said his bunch started slow, but finished strong.

"I thought we started out a little tight," he said. "And we didn't hit some shots we normally hit."

Blevins said his strategy to spread the floor late in the third with only a two-point lead was not to sit on a small lead, but to keep some of his starters from fouling out and to also try to get some easy baskets.

"I've got four pretty good ball handlers," he said. "We were not trying to run clock, we were trying to find some easy lanes to get some uncontested layups."

The Lady Senators now advance to play the winner of Fort Dale and Hooper with the area championship game slated for 4 p.m. today.

Rae Pinkard led the Lady Patriots with 13 points with Brantley Kries scoring 11 and Whitney Johnson scoring four points.

Morgan was led by sophomore Katie Taylor with 11 points and Sarah Wood with 10 points. Hayden Casey added nine points.