LITTLE CYPRESS — Battling the Silsbee Lady Tigers tooth-and-nail, the Little Cypress-Mauriceville Lady Bears fell short in a battle of second-place to start the second half of District 22-4A play 67-53 Tuesday night at the Hargrove Bear Cave.

The Lady Tigers (6-1 in district) placed four players in double figures to fight off the pesky Lady Bears (18-9, 4-3), who remain in third-place in the district standings.

The Lady Bears could not quite overcome a very shaky second quarter in which the Lady Tigers went on a 20-7 run to go up 34-20 at intermission.

The Lady Tigers built their lead to 20 by the end of the third quarter and they forced the Lady Bears into 36 turnovers on the night, 21 of them coming in the middle two quarters.

The Lady Bears tried their best to scramble back into it behind guard Chelsea Perry, who scored 13 of her team-high 17 points in the second half, including eight of them in the final period.

Two Perry free-throws cut the margin to 62-53 with 1:07 remaining.

The Lady Bears had a tough time on defense controlling the slashing drive play of Dakota Matthews. Matthews finished with a game-high 20 points, 14 of them coming in the second half.

The Lady Bears held their own in the first quarter, trailing just 14-13 before the “turnover bug” started to bite them in the second quarter.

T’Nya Irvin had 14 points for the Lady Tigers and had two three-pointers. Brandis Bass had 12 points and six rebounds for Silsbee while Emery Maze had 10 points.

Perry finished with a double-double for the Lady Bears as did LC-M post Karly Rogers. Rogers finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds while Perry also snared 10 boards. Brielle Butler added nine points for the Lady Bears.

The Lady Bears outrebounded the Lady Tigers 42-39.

Brittney Wyatt had seven rebounds to go along with five points for LC-M while Zaria Johnson had five.

Matthews and Sydni Whitted paced the Lady Tigers with seven rebounds apiece while Akira Ray added seven points and six rebounds.

The Lady Tigers finished with 22 turnovers.

The Lady Bears finished 12-of-17 from the free-throw line while Silsbee was just 12-of-24.

The Lady Bears will look to get back on the winning track Friday when they welcome in the Hamshire-Fannett Lady Longhorns as they continue to battle for playoff positioning with the likes of Bridge City and Lumberton.

Silsbee, meanwhile, remains just a game back of first-place Hardin-Jefferson (7-0). H-J throttled Hamshire-Fannett 94-27 Tuesday night. Meanwhile, Lumberton (3-4 in district) defeated the WO-S Lady Mustangs (0-7 in district) 48-36.