HANCEVILLE — Cold Springs’ varsity girls couldn’t have scripted a better start on Tuesday.

And that initial onslaught turned out to mean more than coach Tammy West could’ve imagined.

The No. 2 Eagles (18-8) scored the first 20 points of their clash against No. 6 Sulligent and held on for dear life down the stretch, eventually fighting off the Blue Devils for a 46-38 win to advance in the Class 2A Northwest Regional Tournament at Wallace State.

Sulligent trimmed its deficit slowly but surely over the final three quarters, drawing to within 40-38 with 2:20 remaining.

Cold Springs, though, found its resolve late as Paizley Whitlow, Hollyn Bruer and Kenady Graves combined to go 6 of 6 from the free-throw line inside the final minute.

The Blue and Gold also put together a handful of defensive stops during those tense moments and brought down the subsequent rebounds to seal the deal.

With the win, Cold Springs advances to its third consecutive Elite Eight. Awaiting the Eagles will be either No. 1 Decatur Heritage or No. 8 Belgreen.

---

Coach Speak

“Our shooting hasn’t been where we’ve wanted it this year, but I knew we had a group of girls who could play defense. It was a definitely a team effort. Every time a ball was on the floor, there were blue jerseys on the floor.” — Tammy West

“I was very proud we held our composure, because there’s not been a lot of games like this for us. Being a young team I was kind of worried … but I’m super proud of them. We made our free throws, got rebounds when we needed them and got stops when we needed them.” — Tammy West

---

Player Speak

“I’m trying to keep everyone calm. I can keep myself calm, but the main thing is trying to make sure we’re doing the right thing. The ball is going to go our way — we’ve just got to hustle, stick to our principles and the game was ours. We just had to not freak out.”

---

Top Scorers

Kenady Graves (14), Paizley Whitlow (13), Ella Dickerson (10)