McGill-Toolen 59, Fairhope 57: Rene Scott

Down by one point with five seconds remaining, Rene Scott drilled a three-pointer to give No. 9 McGill-Toolen the Class 7A, Area 2 title with a 59-57 home victory over No. 8Fairhope on Saturday.

Both teams now advance to the South Regional in Dothan where the Pirates (21-7) will face Baker.  McGill (25-6) will meet Theodore next Friday. The Hornets beat the Bobcats 81-80 in the Area 1 title game.

Scott ended with a game-high 20 points in the triumph, while Paris Chambers had 14 and T.J. Howard added 10.

The championship win marked McGill's sixth area title in the last seven years. The Yellow Jackets also won their 24th straight home game.

Fairhope was led in scoring by junior Tevin Brown with 18 points. He was in foul trouble much of the game. Philip Martin had 16 and freshman Benton Gambinoadded 11.

"It was another hard-fought game," said McGill coach Phillip Murphy. "A lot of credit goes to Fairhope. They took the lead for a few seconds at the end of the game. We didn't do a good job mentally of finishing the game. I'm proud of my guys for hanging on to win, though."

McGill actually led most of the entire contest and was up 56-46 with about four minutes left.

Fairhope started to rally at that point, though, and pulled within three points at 56-53 with two free throws from Brown. Noah White than had a bucket to make it 56-55 with 1:11 to play. Brown drilled two more free throws with 22 seconds remaining to put the Pirates on top 57-56, completing an 11-0 run by Fairhope.

Scott then hit an off balance 3-pointer with five seconds left, putting McGill up again 59-57.

The Yellow Jackets had to sweat a last 3-point attempt by Brown as time expired though that missed the mark.

"Tevin Brown doesn't miss many of those," said Murphy.

Robbie Robertson said his team had a chance at the end.

"We hung in there," said Robertson. "We had that chance at the end, but McGill made a great shot. We battled and scrapped to try to give ourselves a chance to win. We made a little run there at the end and had a chance to win."

The teams split a pair of regular-season meetings.