Indians regroup, rally for win (SLIDESHOW, VIDEO)

 FORT WALTON BEACH – Brittany Brown had missed each of her first six 3-point attempts. Brittany West, similarly, found herself in a bit of a scoring slump, as Choctawhatchee’s usually spot-on perimeter shooters found themselves misfiring in the opening minutes of Wednesday’s GoSouthern.com Classic tilt against Graves County (Ky.).

View a slideshow from the game »

Having seen enough, Indians' coach Don Brown called his team together for a meeting of the minds.

“I told them, ‘Let’s start working it inside to our bigs and see what we come up with,” Brown said.

“Things worked out pretty good.”

Indeed they did.

Lauren Day continued her dominating ways inside, finishing with 15 points and 13 rebounds while Lakeshia Clay chipped in with 13 points and Choctaw overcame its tepid start to come away with a 52-39 win.

“I just tried to pick it up because our shots weren’t falling,” Day said. “Be big inside so (Graves County) had to worry about the inside.”

The win improved the Indians to 13-1 on the season, by far the best start in Brown’s five seasons at the helm.

“We’re just trying to take one day at a time,” Brown said. “We want to practice hard and work hard every day. We don’t want anyone to outwork us at practice and they’re buying into that.”

Down by five at the half, Choctaw immediately began chipping away at the Graves County lead in the third quarter, drawing within one on back-to-back buckets inside from Day. It was Day reknotting the score at 30-all moments later and then, after Graves County answered with its own points in the paint by Lindsey Barton, Brittany Washington again evened the score with an offensive put back to make it a 32-32 game.

West then connected on her first 3-pointer of the night to give the Indians their first lead of the game at 35-32.

After shooting 27 percent from the field in the first half, Choctaw rediscovered its touch in the second half.

Brittany Brown finished with 15 points but it was her play on the defensive end late in the third that helped turn the game in Choctaw’s favor for good.

Leading 35-32, Brown stole the ball from a Graves County player and raced to the other end of the floor for a lay-up, drawing a foul in the process. Brown hit the free throw to convert the three-point play and extend Choctaw’s lead to 38-32.

On Graves County’s ensuing possession it was Brown swatting away Kim Fulcher’s 3-point try at the buzzer.

“We haven’t shot it well the last couple of games,” Don Brown said. “Luckily, we’ve come out with some wins. We played well enough to win, just didn’t shoot it very well.”

Follow Travis Downey on Twitter: @TravisDnwfdn