BROSELEY -- Neelyville booked its seventh reservation in eight years for the Lady Royals Classic championship game with relentless pressure and 24 forced turnovers.
The No. 2 Tigers had big runs to open the game and then the second half to beat No. 3 Twin Rivers 65-40 on Thursday night.
"We want to pressure people and make them make a bad decision, that way we can go score. But just trying to stay in front of the ball and rotate how we need to do it," Neelyville coach Becky Hale said.
With long arms at the top of the press, the Tigers (8-3) allowed just eight points over the first 10 minutes of the game and jumped ahead to a 15-point lead.
Later on, they opened the second half with a 13-2 run to go ahead by 28 points, their biggest lead of the game.
"Becky is a good coach and she knows how to utilize her players in a good way," Twin Rivers coach Kelly Westerfield said. "Putting (J'Kayla) Fowler up there on the top to be hard to get around was definitely something we struggled with. We didn't play the way we are successful. We stood up and tried to pass over her. She'd get some hands on it and stuff.
"There are some other girls out there with a long arm span. Once we played like we are capable, where we catch it and we attack strong, we made some good things happen. We could break the press. We couldn't always score off it but we could break it."
The Neelyville press was effective for stretches. The Royals (6-5) settled down and found effectiveness on offense only to have Neelyville switch to a different defense.
"I'm not impressed with our beginning of the game or our beginning of the half. But once our girls got over those spans of the game, I think they settled in and played a decent game here and there," Westerfield said.
In the first five minutes of the game and of the second half, Neelyville outscored Twin Rivers 25-8.
"I think we executed pretty well, just trying to get it to the open girl and get good shots," said Hale, who added the offense was particularly effective when it ran a play. "Sometimes we just fire up anything we want to. If we get down there and run a play OK, we are more predictable and we can block out and rebound a little better."
Jentri Worley led Neelyville with 29 points. She sank five 3-pointers, three of them in the third quarter, and had just two points in the fourth quarter. Point guard Autumn Dodd added four more 3s and 20 total points, 10 in each half.
Twin Rivers leading scorer Katelyn South had all six of the team's points in the first quarter, and then picked up her third foul a minute into the second after Fowler drew a charge.
South went to the bench, but only for a couple minutes.
"She's the motor behind our team. She's the offensive catalyst. I could tell they were panicking without her," Westerfield said. "I wouldn't throw any kid back in but she's a senior and she's played so much basketball, she knows what she's allowed to do and not allowed to do when she's got those fouls. If I'm going to lose by 20 I'm going to do it with her in there."
South never picked up a fourth foul and finished with 16 points to lead the Royals.
"When we made things happen offensively, we had more energy on defense. When we turned it over, we just chased them frantically. They were capitalizing on the misses and the turnovers," Westerfield said.
Neelyville will face top-seed Dexter in the championship at 7:30 p.m. Friday. It will be the fifth year in a row the two have played for the title. Dexter has won three of the past four meetings.
"We are going to have to work hard, play hard," Hale said.
Twin Rivers will face No. 5 Chaffee in the third-place game at 6 p.m. Friday. It will be the fourth time in five years the Royals will play in the third-place game. They last won third in 2013.
"They are big, they are definitely somebody who we need to come out and be mentally ready for," Westerfield said. "We need to push the tempo and see if we can wear them down and beat them down the floor and not take them one-on-one because they have the height advantage."