CLINTON — The Co-Lin Lady Wolves put together one of their bestgames of the 2007-2008 season Monday night and eliminated theMeridian Lady Eagles 80-75 in the quarterfinals of the NJCAA Region23 Basketball Tournament at A.E. Wood Coliseum on the MississippiCollege campus.

In the other women’s games Monday, Holmes nippedSouthern-Shreveport 86-85 in overtime, East Central knocked offSouthwest 81-72 and Itawamba eliminated Pearl River 53-40.

Today’s games feature the men’s bracket. At noon, No. 4 Meridianvs. No. 5 Bossier, La., followed by No. 3 Northeast vs. No. 6 PearlRiver at 2 p.m., No. 1 Itawamba vs. No. 8 Gulf Coast at 6 and No. 2Co-Lin vs. No. 7 Miss. Delta at 8.

Wednesday’s semifinals pit Co-Lin against Holmes at noon andItawamba against East Central at 2 p.m. The men’s semifinals followat 6 and 8 p.m. respectively.

Co-Lin improved to 18-8 on the year. Meridian finished theseason with a 23-5 worksheet.

“I thought we played really hard tonight,” said Co-Lin women’scoach Gwyn Young after the win. “I hope we can put together acouple more of these back-to-back.”

The game was close in the first half as both team took turnsexchanging leads. At halftime, Co-Lin led Meridian 36-35.

Meridian’s final lead in the game was 53-51 with 10:36 left toplay. Co-Lin’s Reisha Bullock hit a layup to tie the game at53-all. Co-Lin followed up with an 8-0 run to take a 61-53 leadwith 7:46 remaining in the game.

In the final 35 seconds, Tiara Parker of Meridian netted a pairof free throws to cut Co-Lin’s lead to 76-72. Bullock was fouledwith 27 seconds on the clock. Bullock hit the first of two freethrows and missed the second. Teammate Kristin Ellis grabbed therebound and was immediately fouled. Ellis netted both freebies topush the Lady Wolves lead to 79-72 with 26 seconds left.

Meridian wasn’t through as Parker netted her fourth and finaltrey, cutting the deficit to 4 points, 79-75, with 22 seconds left.Bullock added another free throw for a n 80-75 lead with 13 secondsremaining. The Lady Eagles missed a field goal and Co-Lin reboundswith Ellis beating off Meridian defenders in the final 7 seconds tosecure the win.

“I was real pleased,” added Young about his starters and benchplay.

Powering the Lady Wolves with 14 points and 3 steals was SondraMoncure. Ellis and Bullock finished with 13 points apiece. AlishaMason followed with 10 points and 6 rebounds. Tops off thebackboards was Ellis with 13 rebounds.

The Lady Eagles, coached by Hilary Allen, got 19 points, 4rebounds and 4 steals from Parker. NaDasha Strickland fired in 16points. Jenia Babina scored 11 points and pulled down 6 rebounds.Jennifer Ware had 10 points and 9 rebounds.