Perry’s 3-pointer beat the buzzer and gave Edward Little a thrilling 44-41 win over Brunswick in a KVAC girls’ basketball classic.
“It kind of just happened. I knew there was little time left on the clock, and I knew someone had to shoot it,” Perry said. “It got thrown to me and I knew I had to.”
Edward Little worked the clock down for the last shot after Brooke Barter’s runner tied it for Brunswick with 1:10 to go.
Coming out of a time out with 15.5 seconds left, Piper Norcross (11-2) lobbed the ball inside to Jordyn Reynolds, who missed her first attempt, got rejected on her first putback try, then grabbed another loose rebound and got it to Norcross, who spotted Perry all alone behind her on the right wing.
“She just saw me, made eye contact and passed it to me,” Perry said.
“This was such a huge Heal-point game for us. Every Heal point at this point of the season is big,” EL coach Craig Jipson said.
Perry finished with 13 points and nine rebounds, while Reynolds led all scorers with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Madeline Suhr scored 12 of her team-leading 18 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Dragons (10-3) back from a 10-point deficit.
“That last shot ended the game, (but) it didn’t decide the game,” Brunswick coach Sam Farrell said. “They hit some big shots. We hit some big shots. I never look at the (last shot as the) game-winning bucket. It could have happened in the first quarter.”
Farrell and the Dragons will probably regret their start more than their finish when they look back on this game. They struggled with EL’s full-court pressure and turned the ball over five times before their first shot attempt.
That allowed the Eddies to sprint out to a 9-0 lead that eventually swelled to 16-4 by the end of the period.
“We got out of what we do and who we are,” Farrell said. “They come out fierce. I mean, they’re such a tough team. And it took us eight or nine minutes before we decided, ‘Oh, yeah, we can play basketball, too.'”
Sparked by a pair of 3-pointers by Suhr, the Dragons got back into the game with a 9-0 run in the second quarter to pull within 22-18. Perry hit a bank shot and Reynolds scored on a putback to widen the margin back to eight at halftime.
Eight of Reynolds’ 10 rebounds came on the offensive glass. Perry added three more offensive rebounds to help EL gain a 13-6 advantage in that category.
“It’s definitely an emphasis during practice, every day,” Reynolds said of her team’s rebounding advantage.
“Every coach will tell you basketball is all about defensive rebounding, and that’s what it came down to,” Farrell said.
The Eddies also turned the ball over just seven times to Brunswick’s 15. Not surprisingly, they finished with 14 more shot attempts than the Dragons.
Brunswick battled back yet again in the third quarter, this time to tie the game at 27-27 on a Sabrina Armstrong 3-pointer. But Reynolds triggered an 8-0 EL run to end the period with a turnaround jumper as the Dragons went the final 5:20 of the third without scoring.
“They’re very good shooters,” Reynolds said of the Dragons. “We had to get quicker out to the 3s and get our hands up.”
“We worked ourselves through it,” Perry said. “Whenever they came back, we just kept going. We knew we had to keep pushing.”
The Eddies pushed the lead out to 10 when Perry found Reynolds inside for a hoop with 6:02 to go. Suhr responded with a personal 8-0 run on back-to-back 3s and a drive to the hoop to make it a two-point game again with 3:15 remaining.
“They’re just such great shooters. They just shoot the ball so much better than we do,” Jipson said. “We’ve struggled offensively all year and they got hot in the last quarter.”
Grace Fontaine fed Reynolds inside to make it 41-37 with 2:51 left. Suhr scored her 10th straight point for the Dragons off a pass from Charlotte MacMillan (seven points, five rebounds) to pull Brunswick back within two with 2:36 to go.
Armstrong (nine points) fouled out with 1:43 remaining, but the Eddies failed to take advantage and missed the subsequent free throws, allowing Barter to tie it 33 seconds later.
It was EL’s second win this season over the Dragons, having topped them in Brunswick, 46-38, on Dec. 30. Since the Eddies are in Class AA and the Dragons are in Class A, the two teams won’t meet again this season, which is fine by Jipson.
“It’s hard to beat a good team twice, and they’re a really good team,” he said. “I’m glad we won’t see them in the tournament. They’re Greely’s problem now.”
Farrell, meanwhile, hopes his team will benefit from the two losses, even if they don’t help in the standings.
“We’re playing a AA team who we won’t see in the tournament, so you’re thinking Heal points,” Farrell said. “But you’re also thinking it’s a chance to get better. That’s the goal. Use this game to get better.”
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