Late basket lifts Mayflower girls
MAYFLOWER 59, DOVER 57
MAYFLOWER — The Dover girls basketball team did just about everything right.
The Pirates stopped the first option. They stopped the second option.
But with four seconds remaining, they left Mayflower’s Alyssa Grizzle underneath the basket for an open layup to win the game 59-57 on Tuesday night at Mayflower High School.
“My kids played hard to be there in that situation,” Dover Coach Kristian Williams said. “With 20 seconds left, we stopped the main player, then stopped the second option. One girl got lucky.”
“It’s a battle every time we play those guys, “Mayflower Coach Coty Storms said. “I knew they weren’t going to quit, Coach [Williams] does a great job with them. We’re lucky to get out of there because we’re still searching for ways to win and extend those leads. That [win] was big for us.”
Both offenses took their time to find a groove throughout the first quarter. Mayflower (13-3, 4-1 3A-5) led 1411 by the end of the quarter, allowing six points and two trips to the free throw line to Dover’s Logan Young.
With Young missing most of the second quarter due to foul trouble, Mayflower built a 34-22 lead at halftime. Riley Whittington and Haley Francis found their footing in the quarter to combine for 15 of the Eagles’ 20 points, while the Pirates (13-4, 3-2) scored just five times.
“That’s probably one of our worst first-half games, “Williams said. “We’re in [the locker room] saying, ‘We’re better than this, a lot of things didn’t go our way.’ ”
With Young back on the court in the second half, the Pirates cut into the lead with a 17-11 quarter. Young scored nine of the Pirates’ points, followed by five from Kenzie McCrotty and Emerie Hansley.
“I looked at my assistants at one point and said, ‘Where did that lead go?’ ” Storms said. “I think it just came down to we were missing some easy ones and they would hit some and just chipped away like great teams do.”
Young and McCrotty continued their scoring pace in the fourth quarter with 14 points combined to cut it to a one-possession margin with less than a minute remaining.
“That’s Lady Pirate basketball,” Williams said. “We expected to be here at the end. When it mattered, there was never a second guess, the kids played hard.”
With 33 seconds remaining, McCrotty drove through traffic to make a lay-up, tying the score at 59-59. McCrotty, who played the game with the flu, finished with 20 points to tie Young for the team lead.
“For a sophomore, she doesn’t play like a sophomore,” Williams said. “She has one of the biggest hearts, she’s a competitor and it just showed tonight that even when she didn’t feel well, she was going to do whatever it took to put the team where they needed to be.”
Mayflower was led by Whittington and Francis, who scored 20 and 14 points respectively.
“Those two guards there, that’s how we roll,” Storms said.