For the third straight season, Poplarville’s Lady Hornets hit the road to open the Class 4A South State playoffs.

And for the third straight year, the road wasn’t a kind pace for head coach Annette Smith’s crew.

Homestanding Stone High overcame an early deficit and knocked off the visiting Lady Hornets 70-58 on Monday night.

The loss ends Poplarville’s season at 12-15, while the Lady Tomcats advance and will host the South State Tournament beginning on Thursday.

Poplarville jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead, before Stone recovered.

“They’ve got a really good team, and they responded when we took the quick lead,” Smith said. “We never gave up, we just couldn’t quite get back in the swing of things once they took the lead.”

Stone’s Megan Colvin hit a pair of three-pointers with her team trailing 7-0, to swing the momentum back in favor of the home team.

The Lady Tomcats recovered from the early deficit to take a 19-15 lead after one quarter.

Despite seven points apiece from Poplarville’s Larke Nightengale and Demi Beason in the first half, Stone continued to extend its lead and took a 35-24 advantage into halftime.

Poplarville cut the deficit to six, at 44-38, in the third frame, but Stone responded with three straight baskets to make it 50-38 entering the final period and the Lady Hornets never got within single digits again.

Demi Beason paced Poplarville with 19 points, while Policia Travis and Jeronda Beason had nine points apiece and Daquari Raine had nine rebounds.

Kiarra Johnson led Stone with 20.