MOBILE, Alabama - The Fairhope Pirates season fell short of making the South West Regionals 6A tournament next week as McGill-Toolen Catholic played up to their Top-10 ranking and knocked FHS out of the playoffs 60-48 Friday.

Nate Andrews' game high 27 points kept the Pirates in contention despite trailing by as much as 14 at the half. The Yellow Jackets' steady draining of three-pointers (five in the first half) and accurate mid-range two-pointers kept Mc-T out front as Fairhope's outside shots could not find the cylinder's gravity at the same rate.

A 16-11 Fairhope run in the fourth led by Lewis Hunter and Britton Flowers helped cut the Jackets' lead to eight with about 90 seconds to go, but momentum swung back for the home team to hold on and move on.

"I couldn't be any prouder of our kids," said Fairhope coach Andy Ryan who said at the beginning of the season that inexperience would be his biggest concern. "We didn't get our heads down. Kept fighting. Our effort was great. We have come such a long way from the beginning of the year and that's a testimony to the kids and their hard work. As

far as this game, I think their perimeter shooting was the difference in the game. At times we did a better job controlling the tempo and at others we let them control it with a more hectic tempo that they were more comfortable with. They have some players that are difficult to match up with and McGill is a good team and very deserving of their

(No.7) ranking. But, I'm just so proud of these guys. Nate Andrews has played fantastic basketball the last month and Rushing (Watson) always leads us and our two seniors Lewis Hunter and Duke Milton that did a great job for us not only in basketball, but football as well."

Hunter added eight points for the Pirates who shot 14-of-18 free throws. McGill-Toolen was 14-for-19 at the line and had double-digit point production from T.J. Lang with 20 and Jason Smith with 19.

Watson, Fairhope's junior point guard, was effectively double teamed throughout the game and was clearly exhausted near the end of regulation.

Yellow Jacket coach Phillip Murphy said he decided to focus extra energy on Watson with high and constant pressure foremost. It seemed to work despite Andrews' often spectacular range of accurate shots from acrobatic layups to free throws.

"We planned on -not trapping them- because the Watson kid does a great job finding guys out of traps, but we wanted to keep constant one-on-one pressure on them the entire game. But I just wish we had an answer for Nate Andrews."

The 24-6 Jackets will take on Murphy (23-5) at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Mitchell Center.

The Pirates ended the season 10-17 as the 6A Area 3 Runner-Up for 2011-12.