JASPER, Tenn. -- Marion County flipped its script for Friday night. The ceiling said to.
Water dripping onto the basketball court forced a one-hour delay of the game between the Lady Warriors and Lookout Valley.
It didn't bother the visiting Lady Yellow Jackets, who took an early lead and maintained it in a 62-53 win.
"It took a quarter for us to get into it," Marion County coach Randy Smith said. "Then when we did, we could never get that one defensive stop."
Tennille Rogers led Lookout Valley with 21 points, and Beth Crownover had 19. Annie Marr and Elexis Foster each added 10 for the Lady Jackets. The Lady Warriors' Emily Webb led everyone with 22 points, including three second-half 3-pointers during a comeback attempt, and Shelly Gibson scored 13.
The two squads are battling for second place behind Van Buren County in District 6-A. The Lady Jackets (16-6, 7-2) have three district games remaining, and the Lady Warriors (13-5, 7-3) have two left.
"Van Buren is the best and they've handled the rest of us," Lookout Valley coach Darren Crownover said. "We still have good teams to play. We don't want to look ahead."
For about 30 minutes the teams were looking at a possible makeup date. School officials decided to go ahead with "queen of the court ceremonies." The leak stopped and officials gave the teams time to warm up.
"I'm glad we were able to get it in," Crownover said. "Glad we didn't have to rework our schedules."
The Lady Jackets passed part of the time with the cheerleading squad, then watched Marion County's ceremony.
Lookout Valley won the first quarter 13-6 by handling the Lady Warriors' pressure with just two turnovers. The Lady Jackets won the rest of the game by two points.
"We just passed the time and tried to keep each other entertained," Rogers said. "Then we just kept our focus."
Lookout Valley enjoyed a 31-24 lead at halftime. It extended that lead to 39-25 less than three minutes into the third quarter, which ended with a 50-41 margin.
A 3-pointer from Webb cut the lead to five with seven minutes remaining, but a quick 5-0 spurt from the Lady Jackets put them ahead by 10 and allowed them to run time off the clock and preserve the win.
"We couldn't get over the hump," Ellis said. "Every time we made a mistake, they stuck it to us."
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP.