Huffman girls basketball coach Lin Slater collapsed in the final minutes of Saturday’s game with rival Ramsay at Bill Harris Arena in Birmingham.

Huffman was leading 48-44 with 1:41 left and trying to hold off a Rams rally when Slater collapsed on the bench during a timeout.

Paramedics attended to her and eventually took her out of the gymnasium on a stretcher. Huffman principal John Lyons said her eyes were open and she was speaking to paramedics when she left.

The game was called at that point. Administrators asked the coaches of the Huffman and Ramsay boys teams if they still wanted to play their scheduled game. Once they heard Slater was awake and talking, they agreed to play.

The Huffman girls entered the game with a 19-3 record. Ramsay was 12-5.

“I really didn’t see what happened,” Ramsay coach JoVanka Ward said. “I saw coach Slater was down. I think she was already down, writing on the board. Then I saw her team and her staff trying to help her up, and she wasn’t responsive to them trying to help her up.”

Ward said she never believed the game would continue at that point.

“I don’t think there’s an expectation of the kids, after seeing their coach go down, to come back on the floor to play a basketball game,” Ward said. “This is a game. Completely minimal compared to seeing their coach in that state.”

Slater is the winningest coach in girls’ basketball history at Huffman and led her team to the first Final Four appearance at the state playoffs. Her program has won a regional championship, advanced to the Elite 8 three times and advanced to the sweet 16 four times, Huffman also has won 5 area championships.

She played high school basketball at Central-Coosa in Rockford, helping the team to a pair of final four appearances. Slater played college basketball at Southern Union. She began her coaching career at Childersburg from 2006-2012. She had multiple 20-win seasons there and was named Talladega County Coach of the Year twice.

Slater served as a varsity assistant at James Clemens in 2012-2013 before taking over at Huffman. She has a 286-168 overall record in 17 years as a head coach, including 169-119 at Huffman.

Staff correspondent Dennis Victory contributed to this report

This post will be updated