CENTRE – Cherokee County girls basketball coach Travis Barnes knew the Chattooga Lady Indians wanted to play an up-tempo game. He also knew if his Lady Warriors were to have a chance in Monday’s Cherokee Invitational semifinals, they would have to slow the pace of the game down.

Cherokee County accomplished that feat, but it still couldn’t come away with a victory in a 37-30 setback.

The win by Chattooga (4-2) propels them to Tuesday night’s tournament championship game, where it will face the Woodland Lady Bobcats at 6 p.m.

“I was proud of our girls,” Chattooga coach Lamar Turner said. “The program has been down and this is the first championship game our girls will play in. It means so much to our program just to be able to play in a championship game.”

The loss dropped Cherokee County to 4-2.

“Defensively, we played good,” Barnes said. “We held them to 35 points, but our offense was non-existent tonight. We were 6 for 19 at free throws, and you’re not going to win any game shooting like that. We were also 11 for 51 in field goals. We made four shots the second half, and that’s the difference right there.

“You can set up offensive plays and do offensive schemes, but if you can’t put the ball in the hole it doesn’t matter. We had just a really bad offensive night.”

Despite the poor shooting by the Warriors, they still had a chance to win the game late. In a tie game at 28 with just over three minutes left, Cherokee County’s Melody Berry was fouled and sent to the free-throw line. She gave the Warriors the lead at 29-28 after making the front end of a pair free throws, but that would be the last time Cherokee County would lead.

The Indians made a 3-pointer on their next trip up the court and made a couple of more baskets down the stretch for the final.

“We’re better when we can get in transition and score some easy buckets,” Turner said. “I thought Cherokee County did a great job on Mariah Price, our sophomore point guard. They did a good job of making her play half court. She wasn’t knocking down many shots.

“Tonight, I thought we played pretty good defense, especially on No. 21 (Deidra Davis). When she’s got the ball in her hands, it’s not necessarily to score, but she does a good job of finding the open girl. I thought we did a pretty good job on her, and we didn’t give up on No. 4 (Amy Atkins). I thought Shadow Day did a good job defending her. We didn’t give up the 3.”

Day led the Indians with 13 points. Kristen Adams added nine points and Coranda Days had seven points. Price only managed three points.

Davis was the high scorer for the Warriors. She finished with 14 points and had an assist. Berry came away with seven points and seven boards. Atkins had three points and four steals.

Barnes was glad to see Davis’ scoring output increase from her last outing against Gaylesville on Saturday. In that game, she had only three points.

“It’s kind of an odd thing, but I told her to shoot more,” Barnes said. “A lot of times you don’t have to tell a player to shoot. She’s a good shooter and a good scorer when she does that, and she did well tonight.”

Barnes was also pleased with the production of Berry.

“She’s tall, and we’re trying to get her to box out more,” Barnes said. “She did better tonight about getting rebounds, but when she got the rebound she couldn’t put it back in and score.”

Chattooga led 9-6 at the end of the first quarter and held a 21-17 advantage at the break. Cherokee County came back to take a 23-22 lead into the fourth quarter.