After falling behind 13-0 and trailing by 10 points in the fourth quarter, the Rising Sun girls basketball team battled back to take a three-point lead only to squander it in the final minute. Havre de Grace scored the final five points of the game to top the visiting Tigers 44-42 Thursday night. The Warriors' Kayla Sumpter scored the first basket of the fourth quarter to give her team a 39-29 lead with 6:45 left in regulation.
After pressing for nearly the entire first three quarters, Rising Sun coach Kathy Stoudt made a major adjustment which keyed the Tigers' comeback. Rising Sun switched to a halfcourt zone defense and stymied the Warriors for 5 minutes, 57 seconds. Lexie Gray nailed a pair of three-pointers during the Tigers' 13-0 run. Gray's second three-pointer put Rising Sun ahead 42-39 with 1:11 left to play. "At that point I was just reaching for straws, really," Stoudt said. "Each thing we changed worked for a little bit and then it stopped working. What I did was put LG (Lexie Gray) in hoping to get her shooting and we went to halfcourt zone because I could see that our girls were running out of gas, too." After Sumpter made a free throw to narrow the gap to two, Rising Sun was whistled for a three-second violation with 30 seconds remaining. Havre de Grace missed a three-pointer but maintained possession when the ball bounced out of bounds last touched by a Tiger. Timia Clark tied the game on a clutch jumper with 13 seconds left. Havre de Grace committed a foul on the ensuing inbounds pass, but Rising Sun missed the front end of a one-and-one. The Warriors got the rebound and Sumpter was fouled as she drove in for a layup attempt. She calmly sank both free throws with 2.7 seconds left and Rising Sun's desperation heave at the buzzer was off the mark. "We felt pretty confident [up by three]," Stoudt said. "A couple calls didn't go our way but I told the girls it was a learning experience for us. We can't come into the gym as flat-footed as we were in the first half. But to be able to pull ourselves out of it and be in a position to win the game, I was happy about that. But we weren't able to pull it off at the end." Havre de Grace scored the first 13 points of the game before Bella Barbato buried a three-pointer with 1:32 left in the first quarter. "As everybody, we need practice and continuity," said Stoudt. "All these days off is killing us. A lot of our girls don't play basketball in the off-season so we need the practice." Rising Sun reeled off seven straight but the Warriors led by as many as 13 points in the second quarter and held a 30-20 edge at the break. The Tigers tallied seven in a row to start the third quarter and trailed 37-29 entering the fourth quarter. Kendra Stamper paced the Tigers with 11 points and Ally Bradford added nine. Rising Sun bounced back the following night to trounce Octorara 52-20 behind 29 points from Stamper. Comments are closed.
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