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By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

The Callaway Lady Cavaliers used a balanced scoring effort to secure a critical 58-53 home win over Heard County on Friday night.

Four players were in double digits in scoring for the Lady Cavaliers, who improved to 6-1 in Region 5-AA while avenging their only region loss of the season.

Heard County, which beat Callaway 48-40 earlier this season, fell to 4-1 in the region.

While Callaway has one region game remaining, Heard County has three region games left.

The team that finishes first in the region will host the region tournament, and if Callaway and Heard County finish tied for the top spot, a coin flip will determine the top seed.

Jazmine Thornton led Callaway in scoring with 17 points, Niakoe Burks added 12 points, and Gabrielle Johnson and Camryn Stargell contributed 11 points apiece. It’s the kind of offensive distribution that coach Deyano Martin wants to see.

“I’ve been preaching that the whole year,” Martin said. “We’ve got five starters who can all get double digits any night. Once we start playing together, we’ll be a dangerous team. Tonight I thought we did a good job of spreading it out.”

Trailing 25-20 at the half, Callaway outscored Heard County 19-9 in the third quarter to build a 39-34 lead.

The Lady Cavaliers were in control in the fourth quarter and led by as many as nine points to earn the win.

“I’m super proud of them,” Martin said. “They hung in there and stayed level-headed, even when we got down, got behind. They kept fighting.”