The first eight minutes of action Thursday in the Region 7-2A girls’ championship game wasn’t the best eight minutes of basketball you’ll ever watch.

A Madison Falvey bucket was the only field goal of the quarter as Loyd Star led 2-1 heading into the second quarter at Amite County High School.

Maybe it was the familiarity that comes with playing a team for a fourth time this season or maybe it was the largeness of the moment that comes playing for a title or maybe it was the Lysol that the clock keeper had sprayed all over the ball before tip-off — but no one could buy a basket early.

Regardless, shots started to fall for West Lincoln (17-8) and the Lady Bears steadily pulled away over the next three quarters in getting a 51-12 win over their rivals from Loyd Star (12-12).

It’s the fifth-straight region tourney title for the team from Flea Hop, but the first for Alissa Adams, West Lincoln’s first year head coach.

One thing that Adam’s team has improved in over the season is building up their base defense. Thursday they may have had their best performance of the season on that end.

Loyd Star is without junior point guard Carson Hughey as she’s missed the few weeks of the season with a leg injury.

With no Hughey to handle the ball, the West Lincoln defense was smothering in guarding LS senior point guard Aubrey Britt. When Britt would cut through the lane without the ball, the WL defenders would step into her path and help off of whoever they were guarding.

Britt was held to six points as Loyd Star junior Marley Britt is also playing through an injury. Junior Alyssa Leggett also scored six points for Loyd Star coach Seth Britt.

“Credit to West Lincoln, they made life difficult for us in everything we tried to run,” said Seth Britt.

The shooting of West Lincoln junior Mary Claire Johnson is one of the things that got the West Lincoln offense rolling. Johnson hit five 3-pointers and finished with 17 points.

“It’s good collectively for our team because when Mary Claire gets hot it opens up a lot of other avenues (offensively) for us,” said Adams.

Junior guard Kara Beth Addison scored 21 points to lead West Lincoln.

Both teams had close games Tuesday night to reach the championship. LS beat Bogue Chitto 41-37 while West Lincoln and East Marion were tied 17-17 at halftime before the Lady Bears pulled away for a 33-27 victory.

Bogue Chitto (13-12) and coach Marc Howard got 26 points from junior forward De’Mya Porter in a 47-41 win over East Marion in the consolation game. Senior Kaitlin Poole added nine points for the Lady Bobcats.

West Lincoln and Loyd Star will both host MHSAA 2A State Tournament games next week while Bogue Chitto will play on the road in the first round.