Playoffs: Chestatee girls shock No. 3 Franklin County

CARNESVILLE -- Shelby Bright scored all five of her points in the final 20 seconds, including a 3-pointer at the buzzer, to lift Chestatee to a shocking 37-36 win over Class AAA No. 3-ranked Franklin County Friday night in the opening round of the girls state basketball playoffs.

Chestatee coach Web Daniel called it the biggest win in the program's history.

"No doubt about that," he said. "There probably wasn't anyone out there other than the coaches and girls on this team that gave us a chance to win this game. It's hard to describe how we felt at the end."

The final play was set up when Franklin County missed two free throws with nine seconds left that would have sealed the game. Chelsea Wilson grabbed the rebound, raced down court, and found a wide-open Bright, who hit the game-winning shot with two Franklin defenders bearing down on her.

"It was a great shot," Daniel said. "I almost called a timeout when we got to half-court but remembered we didn't have any left. Shelby had hit two free throws right before that to put us in a position to win it."

Chestatee (17-11) trailed by eight points with four minutes left but chipped away at the lead in the final minutes.

Daniel told his team earlier in the week they could win if they played a perfect game and executed a slow-down approach. They did just that trailing just 8-5 after the first quarter but then used an 11-5 second quarter to grab a 16-13 halftime lead.

The Lady Lions, however, came out firing in the third quarter going on a 12-4 run to take a 25-20 lead into the fourth quarter.

Wilson led the Lady War Eagles with 12 points on four 3-pointers. Peyton Robertson added nine points and Melissa Bailey seven for Chestatee.

Ashley Harris paced Franklin County with 14 points. Brittney Wiley added 12 points for the Lady Lions, who had their nine-game win streak snapped and finished 24-4 for the season. It was just their second loss to a Class AAA team all season.

The road doesn't get any easier for Chestatee, which was the No. 4 seed out of Region 7-AAA. The Lady War Eagles next will travel to Region 6-AAA champ and No. 2-ranked Carrollton on Tuesday in the second round.

"I feel like just going ahead and driving to Carrollton and see if we can go ahead and play right now," Daniel said. "It's going to take another near-perfect game but I think this will give us a lot of confidence we can beat anyone."