It was a game the Perryville girls basketball team had to win twice. Bohemia Manor battled back from a 14-point deficit to take a fourth quarter lead before the host Panthers recovered and wound up prevailing 42-41. Jillian Miller's free throw with 53.7 seconds left proved to be the difference. The Eagles got the ball back one last time with 9.6 seconds left but missed a runner with four seconds to go and the Panthers picked up the rebound.
"It felt really good," said Miller. "It was better than our first game (a win over Edgewood). We were high intensity the whole time. This game we did even better." Teri Wennersten paced the Panthers (5-12 overall, 4-8 league) with 13 points, Jules Jones, Jaleea Woods, and Miller each supplied six. For a while, it seemed as though Perryville might cruise to the victory. Ahead 14-13, the Panthers scored the last six points of the first half and the first seven points of the third quarter to grab a 27-13 advantage. Bohemia Manor responded with nine straight points to make it 27-22. Leah Soriano hit two three-pointers in the final two minutes of the third quarter to tie the game at 32. The Eagles took their first lead of the game on two free throws by Soriano to start the fourth quarter. Perryville coach Mike Blizzard said some teams might have folded after squandering a 14-point cushion. The Panthers did not. "I think most times when you have an underdog, they just collapse when the other teams take the lead. They stop believing," Blizzard said. "Kudos to them. It's been a long, long year. But they didn't (collapse). The one thing we say to them before the game, our cheer has evolved into '1-2-3 believe'. Don't say anything if you don't believe that we can win tonight. I said 'believe'. They believed in themselves. I was really surprised and happy for them that they did not get down on themselves, that they kept on going." Kayla Losoya buried a three-pointer to start an 8-2 run to put the Panthers up 40-36. "I know we struggle sometimes in the third quarter but I knew we could do it if we were staying with them the whole time," Miller said. "I just told everybody we had to stay together and stay strong. We showed them what we had. We definitely proved it." The Eagles tied it on a Soriano three-point play and Kayla Thompson free throw. Woods and Soriano each made one free throw before Miller broke the tie for good. "I was just trying to shorten the game as much as I could," said Blizzard. "Possession by possession, do the little things, get it inside. We're not the greatest shooting team that's graced the courts of Cecil County but we did little nitty, gritty things, played pretty good defense, take a charge,. We had a little mental lapse where we stopped moving our feet on defense for about two minutes. But they went back to the things that got them to there. I always thought they could play like this. We always say before the game, who's to say tonight's not going to be the night where it all comes together. It seems like, in 17 years of coaching basketball, whether it's a player or a team, (Blizzard snapped his fingers) the light switch just goes on. There's no dimmer. It's not gradually. (Another finger snap.) Just all of a sudden things seem to be easier. The game is finally going the speed that [they] can handle it. I think we passed better. They see more things. It was a heavyweight fight. They were getting clocked in the 14th round. We went down. Then they got back up and finished the fight." Comments are closed.
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