Heritage Lady Mountaineers hold on against William Blount Lady Governors, 48-45
By Marcus Fitzsimmonsmarcusf@thedailytimes.com
Originally published: February 06. 2010 3:01AM
Last modified: February 05. 2010 11:39PM
The Heritage seniors went out of their final home game Friday career-perfect against William Blount.
But just barely.
The visiting Lady Govs stormed back from an 18-point second-quarter deficit to within a bucket Friday before falling, 48-45.
Heritage (12-13, 6-8 District 4-AAA) committed 11 second-half turnovers against an in-the-grill, full-court press from WB. The Lady Govs swiped away at what had been a 35-17 Heritage lead by swiping the ball away in the backcourt. The Lady Mountaineers went without a field goal for nine minutes and closed to 37-33 before senior Kat Morris swiped the wind from WB's sails with back-to-back buckets.
Morris recorded Heritage's first field goal of the fourth quarter with 3:47 remaining and followed it with a back-breaking bomb from so deep in the corner that the Heritage students had to catch her on the fall back.
The senior combo almost wasn't enough. Sami VanVranken dropped in the second trey of her game-high, 25-point night to cut the HHS advantage to 45-42 with 25 seconds left. Shelby Click hit 2-of-4 at the line for Heritage, but VanVranken had one more bomb left, swishing from near halfcourt with 1.7 seconds on the clock off a quarterback-worthy, roll-out inbound pass.
WB (7-15, 4-8) made one last gasp to steal victory by stealing one more entry pass but came up short as Hardiman held on and hit a final free throw.
Heritage closes out the regular season on the road visiting Seymour on Monday, Morristown East on Tuesday and McMinn Central on Thursday.
Govs 71, Mountaineers 51
William Blount opened up a 12-2 lead and never looked back Friday against cross-county rival Heritage.
The Govs (13-10, 5-7 District 4-AAA) opened a 21-7 lead after the first quarter and went to the half with a 40-16 advantage. Micah Ballard led WB with 16 points while Ryan Rice and Ty McBrayer added a lucky 13 apiece.
Heritage (4-21, 0-14) got 10 points from Corey Stroud and Seth Elfstram in closing out its district schedule.
William Blount hosts South-Doyle on Tuesday and travels to Farragut before the District 4-AAA tournament gets under way at Lenoir City.
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