 The Rising Sun girls basketball team recorded its first playoff win in five years Tuesday night. The Tigers topped visiting Harford Tech 54-39. "It was wonderful" junior forward Courtney Spangler said. "The whole team came together. We finally won our first playoff game in five years which is a big deal. Coach told us at practice the other day that she wanted us to win. This team. And that's exactly what we came to do. And that's exactly what we did." Lexi Osborne scored eight of her team-high 13 points in the second quarter as the Tigers had a 22-15 lead at intermission. Rising Sun led by as many as 11 points in the third quarter before the Cobras rallied to narrow the gap to three. The Tigers tallied two straight baskets and held a 32-24 cushion entering the final eight minutes. Harford Tech made two separate runs in the fourth quarter. Trailing by nine early in the period, Tech scored seven straight points to make it 33-31 with six minutes left. Rising Sun responded with a basket by Osborne, who was also fouled on the play. She missed the free throw, but the Cobra players mistakenly thought Osborne was getting two attempts and did not react to the miss. Spangler alertly pounced on the rebound and scored. "They were like, 'Oh, she gets one'. And then she shot and missed and everyone stood there. I was like 'I'm going for the ball' I got it and shot and it went in," said Spangler. Spangler suspected the Tech players might not realize Osborne had one shot because she had made the basket. "Usually when you go to the foul line you never really think it's one shot," Spangler said. "I remember helping to pick Lexi up. And she was like, 'Did I make that?' And I was like, 'Yeah.' I was like, 'You got one shot'." Caitlin Shober and Osborne scored to give Rising Sun a 41-31 lead with 4:18 remaining. "Oh goodness! It was so scary," said Spangler. "They came back. We trapped them and got it back. We conquered. Got a 10-point lead. We just worked together as a team like we did the whole game. Came to win. That's all we did." Tech wasn't down and out just yet. The visitors trimmed the deficit to 41-37 with two minutes left. Spangler missed two free throws, but Taylor Allen got the rebound of the second miss and scored. "I said to Taylor Allen that was the biggest play of her career, whether she knew it or not," Rising Sun coach Kathy Stoudt said. "She got an offensive rebound from a free throw and scored. Normally she doesn't score a lot but she got the rebound and was able to convert it for us. So it was just those little things. Courtney Spangler had the best game of her career. It's great that it happened during a playoff game for us." Allen's basket ignited a 13-0 spurt which finally put the game out of reach. "I think it just shows some of the growth," said Stoudt. "I've talked about how young we are, considering Lexi and Paige (Bradford), two of our key players, are 10th graders. But now it's the end of that 10th grade year they're showing some maturity and some growth and they just closed the door on them." Brooke Bower scored 12 points in her return from injury. Spangler collected 10 points and 12 rebounds. Bradford added 10 points and Allen registered 10 rebounds and six steals. The Tigers passed the ball well to get four players in double figures. "We have talked about that," Stoudt said. "We want them to move a little bit more on offense but they moved the ball much better than they have in the past." Stoudt wasn't surprised her team rose to the occasion. "We were really excited and focused," she said. "Excited to have a home playoff game, which we didn't have last year. And it has been so long since the team won. Since last year was my first year (as coach) we found out it's ben five years since Rising Sun had a playoff win, we were really determined. I wanted this group to be the group. And we had talked about that. I'm glad it was this group." The Tigers were eliminated by Patterson Mill Thursday night. Comments are closed.
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