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STAR CORRESPONDENT

The Unaka Lady Rangers could almost smell victory midway through the third quarter of Monday’s third-place consolation bracket game against the University Lady Bucs in the District 1-1A girls’ basketball tournament.

But that was before the Lady Bucs decided to change up their offensive recipe and leave the Lady Rangers trying to pick up the pieces as Unaka fell late to University 40-30.

The loss left the Rangers with their sights on the winner of the Cosby and Washburn game in region play on Friday night. University travels to the loser of that game.

Leading the entire first half and almost all of the third quarter, the Lady Rangers seemed to be faring well playing with only seven players in the contest.

That was until University started hitting some buckets and finally managed to take the lead role with under one minute to play in the third quarter.

The Lady Bucs went on a 9-0 run in the fourth thanks in part to the play of Anna Wells who dropped a pair of treys to help push her team to a six-point lead at 36-30 with 1:35 left to play.

Unaka was able to find some solid looks at the basket in the final minute and a half of the game but just couldn’t get their shots to fall and were forced to foul and send the Lady Bucs to the line as they managed to push their lead to the final 10-point victory.

Emma Taylor and Keyona Hague led the Lady Rangers in scoring as the duo scored eight points apiece for Coach Kenneth Chambers’s team.

Alisha Harrell finished the contest with six points while Haley Taylor and Olivia Shepard each contributed with four points each.

Vania Cruz and Wells led the Lady Bucs with 16 points apiece.