It’s official. This year’s Lady Cats are a team to be reckoned with.

Saturday night Apalachee traded shot-for-shot with the Winder-Barrow girls team and emerged with a 59-56 win in another edition of the Barrow County rivalry.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” said AHS Head Coach Michael Parks. “This is our state championship.”

It is certainly the Lady Cats biggest win of the season, against a Winder-Barrow squad led by senior Mimi Hill, a Western Kentucky signee.

Saturday at Apalachee, Hill scored a game-high 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, but it was Apalachee’s lone senior, Porshia Cleveland, who scored the go-ahead point on a free-throw and led her team to the win with 20 points and 11 rebounds.

Cleveland wasn’t at AHS (10-9, 5-7 Region 8-AAAA) last season when the Lady Cats fell both times to their rivals on their way to a four-win season.

So the star point guard is 1-0 against her new rivals, helped by two sophomores who were able to exact revenge after last year’s defeats.

Lacresha Mayweather (16 points) and Kiarra Sanford (13 points) helped keep Apalachee in step with Winder-Barrow.

In the final quarter the momentum swung with every basket and the teams swapped the lead eight times in eight minutes.

Apalachee held on to a 41-39 lead after the first three quarters, but Hill tied the game on a pair of free throws 30 seconds in to the quarter.

The teams traded baskets and the packed house roared with each shot.

Halfway through the quarter the home team looked to put a little distance between the Lady Doggs. Cleveland converted an old fashioned three-point shot to put the Lady Cats ahead 52-50.

Sanford followed with a layup and Cleveland added a pair of free throws to complete a 6-0 run and take a 56-50 lead with three minutes remaining.

Winder-Barrow equalized in less than a minute. Hill took her team on a 6-0 run of their own, as she made a layup, guard Rebekah Autry (4 points) made a jumper and Hill finished with two from the charity stripe to tie the game at 56 with 2:09 remaining.

The defenses held the tie for over a minute, before Cleveland strode to the line with 41 seconds remaining. She missed her first shot, but she made the second to go ahead by one.

Winder-Barrow played for the last shot, but Hill’s jumper missed the basket, and Apalachee sophomore Saboyce Shelton hit two free-throws with six second left to account for the 59-56 final score.