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The North Middle School Gators lost to the East Panthers 35-33 at home Tuesday in a quarterfinal game for the Central Tennessee Conference tournament.

The contest came down to the final minute as the Gators held the lead multiple times in the fourth quarter but ultimately came up just short.

The Gators got the first points of the day on a layup from Kyran Peace, but the Panthers quickly pulled ahead for the rest of the period.

North trailed 11-6 after one quarter.

The Gators tied the score up at 11-11 midway through the second quarter before the Panthers got their lone basket of the second quarter to break the brief tie.

North trailed 13-11 at halftime.

The Gators briefly took a 16-15 lead with 4:50 remaining in the third quarter off of a pair of free throws from Peace, but the Panthers responded with 10 straight points to re-establish control of the scoreboard.

North trailed 25-20 going into the final period.

After falling behind by eight points early in the fourth quarter, the Gators scored nine straight points with a pair of 3-pointers from Monte Johnson being followed by a 3-point play from Jackson Knight to give them a 29-28 lead with 3:33 left.

The Panthers hit a free throw to tie the score back up at 29-29 with 2:18 remaining, and North’s Austin Heath subsequently broke that tie with three successful free throws across two trips to the line to make it a 32-29 game with 1:28 left on the clock.

The Panthers refused to go away as they hit a 3-pointer with 1:12 remaining to tie the score once more at 32-32.

Heath hit another free throw with 58.5 seconds left to give the Gators the lead one more time, but the Panthers hit a contested layup with about 30 seconds to play which gave them a 34-33 advantage.

The remaining possessions for the Gators would result in no points while the Panthers added one more free throw to put the final deficit at two.

Johnson led the Gators with 12 points for the game, followed by Heath with seven points and Knight and Jayden Cisco with five points each.

Peace scored four points.

With the loss, the Gators moved to 3-10 on the season.

They will next play in their area tournament which is scheduled to begin next week. A schedule for the tournament had not been released at the time of writing.