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McLEANSVILLE -- There was no time to think.

Brianna Patterson had the ball in her hands, a tie score in her head and six seconds to do something about it.

Dudley's junior guard, who had already scored a game-high 19 points, took the inbound pass from the sideline and found a surprising amount of room as she weaved up the floor with the game on the line.

With the clock down to one second, she split two defenders, hopped into the lane and tossed a floater up toward the net.

Backboard. Swish. Victory.

"We had our little breakdowns, but we kept our head up and did what we had to do to win," Patterson said after her buzzer-beater earned top-seeded Dudley the Triad 3-A Conference tournament title with a 58-56 win over No. 2 Rockingham County on Friday at Northeast Guilford.

Dudley thumped Rockingham 70-30 back on Dec. 16, but when the two teams met again on Jan. 23, the gap shrunk to four, with the Panthers pulling out a 66-62 victory on the Cougars' home court that all but ensured them the regular season title.

"We didn't take them for granted," Patterson said.

Rockingham point guard Krystal Moore hit a running 3-pointer just before the halftime buzzer to tie the game at 30 and send the Rockingham fans into a standing ovation as she trotted off the court, eyes on the floor.

Dudley pulled ahead by as many as 11 early in the fourth, but Rockingham sliced back with a 12-2 run that included back-to-back layups by Liz Ferguson, a third-chance putback by Ashley Palm (she and Ferguson each scored 16) and a baseline jumper by Kiyle Keck -- her only basket of the night -- that made it 53-50.

After an unforced 10-second violation by Dudley, Moore hit a pair of free throws to pull Rockingham within one. Terry then got called for traveling when the ball got caught on her hip coming up court, and Moore, who had 18 points, made the Panthers pay when she hesitated in the lane and hit a layup to give Rockingham a one-point lead.

Terry, who played the entire game, earned a foul on the other end but made only one of two free throws, giving Rockingham a chance at a final shot. But Dudley came up with a steal and called timeout with 6.6 seconds left, where Panthers head coach Kris Britton told her players to get open and find the mismatch.

Dudley already clinched the conference's top seed for the playoffs, but the win still completed the first undefeated conference record in Britton's tenure. "It meant the world to them," Britton said. "They said, 'We want this game.' It was about pride."

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller @news-record.com.

Rockingham County -- Krystal Moore 18, Liz Ferguson 16, Ashley Palm 16, Lindsey Pinckett 4, Kiyle Keck 2.

Dudley -- Breanna Patterson 21, Desiree Drayton 11, Porsha Roach 9, Helen Terry 7, Tonya Jackson 7, Lakiya Rouse 2, Ebona Goins 1.