Newton Citizen

ATHENS - The Region 8-AAAA South girls subregion title is going to come down to the flip of a coin.

The Salem girls (18-7 overall, 8-2 in 8-AAAA South) missed out on a chance to clinch the subregion title Friday night, falling 63-55 to host Cedar Shoals (16-8, 8-2).

The Lady Jaguars' victory coupled with Heritage's 64-38 win at Alcovy means Cedar Shoals, Heritage and Salem are all in logjam for first place in the subregion with 8-2 records.

Since the three teams split their regular season meetings, posting 2-2 records, and all three went 2-1 in their region crossover games, the top seeds for next week's region tournament will be determined by a coin flip at Sunday's coaches' meeting.

It was previously reported that Cedar Shoals was 3-0 in its crossovers, but that mistake was corrected Friday.

"We're all waiting on Sunday now. There's only two sides to a coin, so I don't know how you can flip a coin with three teams," Salem coach Bill Roberts said. "Maybe they'll put one, two and three on pieces of paper and put them in a bag, and we'll draw them out. Who knows?"

Senior Courtney Hurt had a team-high 29 points for the Lady Seminoles. Jaleen Thomas added 14, and Ariel Wynter finished with nine.

"We got off to a good start and went up seven by the end of the first quarter. But we had a terrible second quarter and they outscored us by nine points," Roberts said. "In the third quarter, they beat us by eight points, and that was the game. It was a battle from start to finish."

Cedar Shoals started the week a game behind Heritage and Salem in the race for first place. The Lady Jaguars won at Heritage 69-56 on Tuesday to set up Friday's first-place battle with Salem.

In the boys game, Cedar Shoals (18-7, 6-4) closed out the regular season with a 69-60 victory over Salem (8-17, 2-8).

The Seminoles will be the No. 6 seed from 8-AAAA South in the region tournament and will play in the play-in round at 5:30 p.m. Monday at Dacula High School.