Going into Thursday's regular season finale and Sophomore Night, one thing was for certain, that the Lady Bears had not only locked in a playoff berth in the Region 23 Tournament, but also a first-round bye as the No. 3 seed. But despite that, they wanted to finish the regular season strong with a win against the visiting Mississippi Gulf Coast Lady Bulldogs.

Even though the Lady Bears put up a very valiant effort, they could not get past the Lady Bulldogs in the end, falling 67-63.

"I'm very proud of our effort tonight," Southwest head coach Brent Harris said. "I thought that we defended extremely well. We did a good job of finding our post players."

Early on, the Lady Bears (20-7, 11-3 MACCC) went back and forth with the Lady Bulldogs. Fueled by free throws from Bethany Graves and Michaela Payton and a pair of makes from Kennedee Shelton — one of which being a 3-pointer —Southwest took an 8-4 lead with 5:33 to go in the opening quarter.

But Gulf Coast rallied to jump back ahead, putting Southwest down 17-13 at the end of the quarter.

It was more of the same in the second quarter as Gulf Coast maintained its lead but Southwest kept pace and closed the half on a 5-0 run to pull within five at 33-28.

The beginning of the second half, saw Southwest get into rhythm. Field goals from Payton were bookends to an 11-2 run which put the Lady Bears back ahead at 39-35.

Southwest closed out the quarter holding on to the lead at 43-42.

Both teams continued to battle down to the final minute of play when the Lady Bears unfortunately lost steam and was unable to connect on field goals as the Lady Bulldogs got 3-of-4 free throws in the end to pull out the win.

Shelton led the Lady Bears with 17 points while Graves posted 13 and Payton 10.

The Lady Bears finish the regular season as Runners-Up behind Co-Conference Champions Gulf Coast and Pearl River.

No. 3 Southwest gets a first round bye in the Region 23 Postseason Tourament and awaits the winner of 11^th seeded Meridian and 6^th seeded Northwest Mississippi.