For much of Saturday’s game against Columbus, the LaGrange Lady Grangers were in control.

Things came badly unraveled in the final period, though, as the Lady Blue Devils staged a furious late rally to upend LaGrange 52-51.

Columbus outscored LaGrange 20-7 in the fourth period to pull off the comeback win.

After Steara Mitchell gave LaGrange a 51-50 lead with 37 seconds remaining, Khayla Lloyd put Columbus back on top 52-51 with a tough, fade-away jump shot with 12 seconds left.

Mitchell got a 3-pointer away at the buzzer, but it didn’t all, allowing Columbus to walk away with the victory.

LaGrange (15-4 overall) fell to 5-3 in the region.

“We’ve got focus on, when you have a 15 or 20-point lead, you have to take smart shots,” LaGrange head coach Jan Jones said. “You don’t necessarily have to slow down, but our shot selection was not very good tonight. We’re jacking up threes, jacking up outside shots. There were a couple of times we could have taken it to the rim, and we didn’t.”

Jones also said Columbus did a much better job from the free-throw line down the stretch.

“The last three minutes, they hit some big shots, and they made their free throws,“ Jones said. “Down the stretch, that was the difference between tonight’s game and the Carrollton game.”

On Tuesday, LaGrange’s players missed just one free throw in the fourth quarter in a 63-56 win over Carrollton.

LaGrange led 17-12 after the first period, and that lead grew to 35-20 at the half.

The Lady Blue Devils cut into the deficit in the third period, but they still trailed 44-32 heading into the fourth quarter before mounting their comeback.

“We have to do a better job with ball management and game management,” Jones said.

KaBrenna Smith led LaGrange with 20 points, with 12 of those points coming in the second period.

Mitchell added 12 points.

LaGrange will travel to Alexander on Tuesday.