North East's girls basketball team held Perryville scoreless over the final four-plus minutes and made four free throws in the last 71 seconds to defeat the Panthers 27-25 Thursday night. Teri Wennersten scored all six of Perryville fourth quarter points and her two free throws with 4:12 left put the Panthers ahead 25-23. The Indians tied it on two free throws by Lauren Cochran with 1:17 to go. With a chance to tie, Perryville called a timeout with 18.7 seconds left. But North East's Tameisha Gaddy stole the ball with 4.6 seconds left and the Panthers were whistled for a foul when a player bumped into Gaddy.
"You can't call a foul like that with four seconds left 70 feet from the basket," Perryville coach Mike Blizzard said. "It did not determine anything back there. It's not like she lost the ball or got hacked real hard." Gaddy made the second of two free throws to give her a team a one-point lead. Perryville brought the ball up and North East knocked in out of bounds near midcourt with two seconds to go. After another timeout, the Panthers tried to set a screen and then throw a long skip pass to the other side of the floor to free Teri Wennersten for a 10-foot jumper but the pass sailed out of bounds. Katie Nybo was fouled on the ensuing inbounds pass and made one free throw with .4 seconds left to account for the final score. Cochran led the Indians with 13 points and Nybo finished with 10. Wennersten paced Perryville with 12 points and six rebounds. Jill Miller dded six points and Jules Jones scored four. The game had a deeper meaning because it was the annual Play for a Cure event with the theme of "Paint the Court Purple" to raise awareness for esophageal cancer and generate funds to fight the disease. Miller's grandmother, Cody, is battling esophageal cancer and was honored in a pre-game ceremony. Both teams were planning to play with special jerseys with North East in a purple shirt with white logo and Perryville in a while shirt with purple logo. Prior to the game, a referee informed the coaches that each team would be assessed a technical foul if they played with a jersey which did not have a number on the front. The Panthers elected to wear the specially-designed jerseys and accept the technical foul while the Indians decided to switch to their normal road jerseys that have numbers on the front. Because of the technical foul issued to Perryville, the Indians were awarded two foul shots and Nybo made one of them. That point proved huge down the stretch. North East coach Alan Foskey said he regretted not having his team wear the special jerseys so that both squads would have been given a technical, enabling the game to start on even terms. "Looking back, that's probably what I should've done," said Foskey. "When [the referees] said we had to take those shirts off. We had [our uniforms] and that's fine. I guess in the spirit of things that's what I should have done but I know how hard it us for us to score and I hate giving away stuff. Looking back now. Yeah, that's probably what I should've done. I'll take the hit for that." Foskey, who has earned a reputation for being a quality coach and outstanding sportsman, said he was caught off guard because the teams had worn special jerseys in previous Play for a Cure games without incident. "I guess I just assumed that had already been [cleared]," he said. "It probably would've been a better token on my part [to have stayed in the purple jerseys]. It's a moral dilemma. I've never been faced with that I guess." Said Blizzard: "Our purpose was to play for Jill's grandmother. In soccer, when's there's an injury, they kick it out of bounds. I guess we don't do that in basketball." He added: "Al's a great guy." Foskey said both teams' effort was worthy of the special night. "Aesthetically, it was not pleasing,"he said. "As far as effort, I thought both teams just fought their hearts out. Both teams wanted that game so bad. That's how it always is when we play them. I feel kind of bad that I didn't do that because that would've set the tone that [raising awareness for cancer] is what it's about. It's not about a game. I've done dumb things in the past. I'm sure that's not the last dumb thing I'll do." Comments are closed.
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