GAINESVILLE — It's been a long six-year drought for the North Hall girls basketball team.
Compare it to matching four numbers in the Georgia Lottery's Fantasy Five drawing and missing the jackpot by just one.
Last week, the Lady Trojans finally hit that fifth number, breaking through the second round of the Class 3A playoffs and into the quarterfinals with a big win over Savannah at home.
Now, North Hall will play for a trip to the semifinals, the first since 2012, on Tuesday against Morgan County at home. Game time is set for 7 p.m. and can be heard live on FM 94.5 The Lake.
Seniors Maci Gillespie, Grace Hollifield, Ansley Smallwood and Lauren Swanson have become the face of the program and are a massive reason why the Lady Trojans are still on the road to Macon.
"We've been talking about it for years like how bad we wanted to get past it," Swanson said. "It's really exciting."
Hollifield said it's part of the goals they set at the beginning of the season.
"We talked about how we were setting our goals," Hollifield said. "We wanted to win Lanierland and we did that. Then instantly, we wanted to be region champions and we did that. Then we set the goal to get through the Sweet 16 and now we're just focused on the next goal. So it's really meaningful to us.
Smallwood said it's been a dream.
"We've been so close," Smallwood said. "It's just been the Sweet 16, Sweet 16. So, getting past that has been so awesome."
North Hall coach Kristi House said she was proud to see her team finally bust through the second round.
"It's great for the kids," House said. "As many times that we've talked about coming up short, but this year, the goals we've set, they've been knocking them back. I'm just proud to see them do what we knew they were capable of all along."
Gaining the Edge is sponsored by Conditioned Air Systems.
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