FUQUAY-VARINA - The Panther Creek girls weathered a furious fourth quarter rally by Fuquay-Varina (3-12, 1-9) to escape with a 44-42 win on Friday night.

The Lady Catamounts have now won four straight games - its only win streak ever - and find themselves in the fifth and final playoff spot in the Tri-Nine Conference.

The two teams took turns making runs at one another. Fuquay won the first and second quarters to take a 23-18 lead into intermission. But the Catamounts (5-11, 4-5) put on a 19-4 run in the third quarter to seize momentum.

"It was just the girls being patient with things," Panther Creek coach Geoff Bowman said. "We played a good first half. Fuquay - they made four or five 3-pointers in the first half. They were good three's that they shot, but we knew that we could just be patient and that would wear off for them, and we would spark our offense a little bit."

Bengals coach Mardy Cutchin said this game was eerily similar to the two teams' first meeting, a 47-44 Panther Creek win on Dec. 1. In that game, Fuquay also had a five point lead at the half. He said he told his team a Catamounts' run was coming.

Following Panther Creek's big third quarter, sophomore Curisa Johnson and Fuquay caught fire. Johnson scored 10 of her 13 points in the fourth quarter, but Panther Creek got just enough from junior Shema LaGuerre (12 points) and senior Jazmine Sutton (8 points) to grab the Catamounts' fourth conference win.

"We've just been working as a team, and we've been building off of this winning streak," Sutton said. "I think we've just got a lot of confidence."

Bowman said its fun to coach in games like this.

"We've had some tight ones, but what we've done is we've started to take care of business with things in our side of the conference," he said. "It's especially good right now because with exam week coming up, we've got a week off, a lot of momentum and the girls have a lot of confidence."

Cutchin said he sees a team that resembles his when he looks at Panther Creek. The young Catamounts have been building gradually and they're finally getting over the hump to some wins. Cutchin said his young team, led by freshmen Camille Baker and Shebria Kersey and Johnson, a sophomore, is just on the verge of putting things together in the Tri-Nine.

"We've been in every game this year," Cutchin said. "We've had our shots. These two programs right here - they're coming around. I think you're going to start seeing a little reversal from the top to the bottom teams. That's a good basketball team [Bowman]'s got right there. And they're young just like we are. If you look at our three scorers, two of them are freshmen and one's a sophomore. That's where our points are coming from."