The littlest player came up the biggest.

At 5-foot-2, junior guard Brea Tackett was the shortest player in Saturday’s Southeastern Ohio Athletic League game. But that didn’t stop her from helping the Ironton Lady Fighting Tigers to a 57-35 win over the Gallipolis Blue Angels.

Tackett scored a game-high 17 points to go with three steals and two assists as Ironton snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 7-3 and 4-1 in the SEOAL.

“Brea really shot the ball well. She gave us the spark we needed on offense,” said Ironton coach Doug Graham.

“But our defense played well. We made a few adjustments in the second half and forced them to do some things they didn’t want to do.”

Mercedes Crockrel had 16 points and nine rebounds for Ironton while Lorna Ceaser added 13 points and five rebounds. Alex Taylor had nine rebounds, four assists and two steals and Janie Morris also had four steals and two assists.

Allie Troester led Galliplis with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Gallipolis jumped out to a 7-0 lead on a 3-pointer by Shantelle Rathburn and baskets by Allie Troester and Samantha Barnes.

But Mercedes Crockrel hit six foul shots and Brea Tackett drained a trifecta with 14 seconds on the clock to put Ironton up 15-13 at the end of the quarter.

Tackett hit two more treys in the second quarter to give Ironton a 23-19 lead.

A layup by Gallipolis’ Tera Young cut the deficit to 24-23 before two free throws by Crockrel with 32 seconds left in the half enabled Ironton to lead 26-23 at the break.

Ironton’s defense really went to work in the second half by forcing 12 turnovers.

Gallipolis (6-3, 1-3) was able to score just six points in each quarter and shot a meager 4-of-18 from the field including one-for-7 in the fourth quarter.

Tackett continued with the hot hand as she scored six points in the third quarter. She made a layup and a 12-footer and Crockel followed with a driving layup as Ironton opened up a 36-25 lead at the 3:55 mark.

Troester hit two straight shots inside to close the gap to 36-29, but Crockrel nailed a 15-footer and Alex Taylor’s layup with 1:03 left built a 40-29 cushion.

A layup by Crockrel and a foul shot by Lorna Ceaser stretched the spread to 49-31 with 3:53 to go. A three-point play by Ceaser made it 53-35 and sealed the outcome with 1:32 left.

Gallipolis 13 10 6 6 = 35

Ironton 15 11 14 17 = 57

GALLIPOLIS (6-3, 1-3): Samantha Barnes 3 0 0-1 6, Amy Noe 2 0 0-0 4, Allie Troester 4 0 4-4 12, Shantelle Rathburn 0 1 0-0 3, Rachel Jones 1 0 0-0 2, Kori Campbell 2 0 0-0 4, Morgan Daniels 0 0 0-0 0, Kimber Davis 0 0 0-0 0, Tera Young 2 0 0-0 4. Totals: 15-39 4-5 35. Fouls: 15. Fouled out: None. 3-point goals: 1-5. Rebounds: 5-18=23 (Troester 10). Assists: 3. Steals: 4 (Barnes 2). Turnovers: 21.

IRONTON (7-3, 4-1): Mercedes Crockrel 4 0 8-8 16, Alex Taylor 2 0 0-1 4, Brea Tackett 4 3 0-0 17, Janie Morris 0 1 1-2 4, Lorna Ceaser 4 0 5-7 13, Emily Lilly 1 0 0-0 2, Cortney Rister 0 0 1-2 1. Totals: 19-44 15-20 57. Fouls: 13. Fouled out: Ceaser (4th 0:11). 3-point goals: 4-4. Rebounds: 9-19=38 (Crockrel 9, Taylor 9, Ceaser 5). Assists: 11 (Taylor 4, Morris 2, Crockrel 2, Tackett 2). Steals: 10 (Morris 4, Tackett 3, Taylor 2). Turnovers: 14.