CLEVELAND, Tenn. – With a 70-game District 5-AAA winning streak hanging in the balance, the Bradley Central girls’ basketball team fought with extra might late to escape the jaws of defeat Tuesday.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga signee Anna Walker flashed to the right side of the hoop to make a putback forcing overtime as the clock struck zero. After junior forward Anna Muhonen gave the Bearettes their first lead of the game with 1:25 left in overtime, they secured a 54-50 home victory over East Hamilton.
As the lone steady force throughout for the defending state champions, Muhonen had 19 points and 14 rebounds. She was 8-of-9 from the field with three putbacks.
“We missed 19 3-pointers tonight, but we kept going to the boards and getting second-chance opportunities,” said the powerful 6-foot-1 Muhonen. “Last year I wasn’t able to play due to injury, but I was able to learn from my teammates, and now I am getting comfortable in my game. I have to keep producing that way.”
Bradley Central (6-2, 2-0) staved off a big upset attempt driven by East Hamilton superstar Madison Hayes.
Hayes, a Mississippi State signee and U-18 Team USA gold medalist, scored 27 points and was the first to strike in overtime as she blazed down the left side of the lane to finish her shot through contact. But her three-point play with 3:11 left in overtime would be the last points scored by the Lady Hurricanes (6-6, 2-1).
“The way we shot, the way we played and Miss Basketball Madison Hayes having a strong night, the basketball gods were good to us,” Bearettes coach Jason Reuter said. “But I am going to give our kids a lot of credit.
“If they would have flinched and hung their head, they would have been done. We don’t lose very much here with girls’ basketball, but you can’t accept in victory what you wouldn’t accept in defeat. We have a lot of things to work on, and we have to start shooting the ball better if we want to defend our title.”
Making a decision to not settle from the outside, the Bearettes turned a 13-point deficit into a neck-and-neck battle late thanks to junior point guard Jamaryn Blair.
The state tournament hero from this past March was money again during crunch time as Blair drained jump shots from 12-14 feet on the right side at will. She scored 10 of her 16 points in the fourth quarter.
Blair’s only miss in the period was just before the buzzer, and Walker followed that to create extra time. Walker scored all 12 of her points after halftime, including the 3-point shot that tied the score at 50 in overtime.
Jamia Williams came up with a crucial steal at midcourt with 15 seconds left to give Bradley Central a chance for the final shot of regulation. Williams also made the last two free throws of the game with 13 seconds left to make it a two-score lead.
“I kept telling our team during timeouts, ‘We can win this game. We’ve got this. We just have to keep up our intensity, because they are going to hit a brick wall at some point,'” Blair said. “I had to stop settling for 3s, and I have really been working on my midrange (shot) lately. We never gave up, and Anna had a huge night for us and is a big part of this team.”
Contact Patrick MacCoon at pmaccoon@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @PMacCoon.