As soon as the celebrations and sorrows subsided Friday night at the Vicksburg gym, the realities set in for both Natchez and Warren Central.

Both team will have tall orders today in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs as the Lady Bulldogs travel to Hancock and Warren Central hosts Picayune. The loss Friday night put the Lady Bulldogs on the road and ended their 11-game winning streak up while being pitted against the defending state champs to open the playoffs.

Tipoff is 7 p.m. in Kiln.

&uot;Neither one is a joy ride,&uot; Natchez High head coach Sue Johnson said. &uot;Hancock is the defending champions. I had a taste of them (last year) with Murrah. A lot (of the girls) are hurt. It hurts them, and they’re feeling it. Hopefully we’ll bounce back Monday night. If not, then we’ll go home.&uot;

The Lady Bulldogs dropped a 68-52 loss to Warren Central for their third loss to the Lady Vikings in as many tries this season to head into the playoffs on the road. The appearance the postseason makes up for missing out last season, and they’ll hope to do one better than their last appearance two seasons ago when they lost at Columbus in the first round.

&uot;We’re going to regroup,&uot; NHS senior Jasmine Woods said. &uot;We’re going to try to come out hard. We knew we’ll be playing a good team regardless. We’ve got to give it our all. There won’t be any more second chances after that.&uot;

Yet it’s the Lady Vikings who have the lesser of the two evils as they host the Lady Maroon Tide, a 53-41 loser Friday night in the 5-5A final. The Lady Vikings put the wraps on their third straight division championship after they knocked off Natchez at the NHS gym two seasons ago.

&uot;Our senior class just three-peated,&uot; WC head coach Donny Fuller said. &uot;It means a lot to my kids. We took some butt-whippings as sophomores. But I kept telling them it would pay off at the end, and it has.&uot;

Give much of the credit to the Lady Vikings front line of Cookie Johnson and Shondalyn Rogers, both of whom signed with UNO. The Lady Vikings pulled away early in the game after dominating the boards inside, and the Lady Bulldogs had trouble getting second shots and keeping their opponents from getting just one shot. At one point in the second quarter Carla Latham made good on a fourth putback following a miss.

&uot;Warren Central killed us on the boards,&uot; Johnson said. &uot;A little better (in the second half), but not much. They flat-out out-hustled us and out-rebounded us on the boards. We were standing around watching.&uot;

SEEING DOUBLE &045; Fans at the Division 7-3A tournament might have thought someone had made a mistake. After all, the championship game for both the boys and girls listed Franklin County vs. Hazlehurst.

But there wasn’t any mistake. The Bulldogs and Indians squared off twice Friday night.

The Franklin County girls came into the tournament as the No. 2 seed, but they weren’t looking to take a back seat to anybody.

The Lady Bulldogs won their three games in the tournament by an average of 27.7 points, beating Hazlehurst 53-37 in the championship game, despite being tied at halftime.

For Franklin County, it was their first district championship in 15 years. It was especially sweet for the six seniors on the team.

&uot;Those seniors paid a healthy price to get to this point,&uot; Franklin County coach Charles Moore said. &uot;We lost a lot of games at first.&uot;

OH SO CLOSE &045; All it took was an off-balance 3-pointer at the buzzer from Amite County to knock down Jefferson County’s Tigers and end their season of struggles.

The Tigers were able to keep Amite County from running away and kept big post player Lee Robinson in check at times in the halfcourt despite his 13 points.

The 6-3, 220-pound Robinson will suit up at Alcorn State in football in the fall.

&uot;Kenneth Lowe did an excellent job, and the others played good help defense,&uot; Jefferson County head coach Marcus Walton said. &uot;He’s a tremendous athlete. Give credit to the team. They did a good job defending him. He can really take over a ball game.&uot;

GETTING BETTER &045; Cathedral’s boys came up short in their 7-1A tournament this week after entering as the No. 3 seed, but the Wave have some key players returning.

The team lost only three seniors in Clay Pennington, Jeremy Davis and Andrew Ellard. Davis moved across the parking lot to begin his final season in baseball before heading to Southern Miss in a baseball scholarship, and the Green Wave basketball will miss his services at point guard significantly.

But his departure moves up freshman Parker Brumfield, whom head coach Peter Arnold is high on for the job.

&uot;He’ll step right in there,&uot; Arnold said. &uot;As a freshman, it was kind of hard to throw him out there. We’ll miss those three seniors for sure. Andrew and Jeremy I think are the two best athletes in the school. We’ll certainly miss them, and Clay was such a key player for us.&uot;

Christian Schmidt contributed to this report.