DAPHNE, Ala. — There was little love lost on Valentine's Day at Trojan Gym Monday night. But if love wasn't overflowing, hard-fought basketball was as it took overtime to decide the 2010-11 6A Area 3 champion.

Daphne (16-8) came through in the end to claim the area title with a 69-64 OT win over Robertsdale at Trojan Gym. Both teams advance to the sub-regionals tonight, but must win to move on and play next week. Daphne (16-8)  is at home hosting Baldwin County while the Golden Bears (18-12) must travel to McGill-Toolen. Both tip-offs are set for 7 p.m. The winners move on to the 6A South Regional next week.

Tied 58-58 at the end of regulation,  Robertsdale took the early lead in the four-minute overtime and led 62-61 with just over two minutes to go when the Trojans went on a 6-0 run that included four free throws by senior Preston Solomon. In all, Daphne scored eight of it's 11 OT points at the line while holding the Bears to a total of six points in the extra perod.

Solomon was named the Most Valuable Player and had a game-high 27 points in the contest with five at the line in OT. Joining him on the all-area-tournament team was teammate Tyler Birch,  Robertsdale’s  Calvin Dade, Fairhope’s Tripp Drummond and Foley’s Volantai Adams.

“Preston Solomon had an outstanding game for us,” said Daphne coach Cedric Yelding. “He’s the heart and soul of this team and he played with a lot of passion tonight, he hit some key free throws for us down the stretch.”

Other leading scorers in the game  for Daphne included T.J. Yeldon with 11 points,  Birch and Dominque Crosby with seven points each and Joe Menefee who added six. For  RHS,  Dade led with 23 points while Kent Langham added 18 points and Deonte Banks 11.

The score stayed close throughout the game. Tied 16-16 at the end of the first quarter, the halftime score was all tied up at 27-27. But by the end of the third quarter, Daphne had taken a 49-44 lead. After trading leads through most of the fourth, RHS built a 58-55 lead off the long-distance bombs of Langham and inside play by Dade. But with about 30 seconds to go, Birch found Menefee wide open in the corner and the senior hit the three to tie it up 58-58.

“We did a better job of attacking the basket in the second half,” Yelding said. “Credit to my kids, I've been praising them the past three or four games because of the effort and they could have easily laid down that last possession at the end of regulation and they didn’t. That's a test of kids refusing to lose.”

Neither side quit as Robertsdale rallied yet again in regulation to take a 59-58 lead down to the wire with Dade at the line and nine seconds to go.

But Yeldon then hit 1-of-2 pressure free throws with 1.0 seconds of regulation left to send it into overtime.