RANDY HISNER
WZBD.com
“Sometimes you just gotta win ugly…”
The Heritage girls’ basketball team scored the final five points of the game Thursday at home against South Side to erase a 31-28 Archer lead and pull off a 33-31 victory.
Freshman Kierstyn Hess was the star of the final moments, pulling the Patriots within one at 31-30 with a drive on the right side with 2:32 to go and then stealing the ball at half court with 54 seconds left. That steal led to a fast break that ended with Audrey Meyer’s layup to give Heritage the lead for good. Hess added a free throw with 2.7 seconds left to make the final margin over the winless Archers (0-9).
The win evened the Patriots’ record at 4-4, but they almost blew it. They led 25-14 at the half after breaking a 12-12 first quarter tie by thrashing the Archers to the tune of 13-2 in the second quarter, thanks in large part to six points from sophomore Molly Krey and four from Hess.
But then the Pats’ shooting matched the frigid outdoor temperatures for the first 13:28 of the second half. They managed only Krey’s third-quarter three-pointer during that stretch, as the Archers went on a 17-3 run to go in front, 31-28. The rally was capped by Amaiya Shetler’s steal and layup at the 2:49 mark.
That’s when Hess and Meyer started their clutch scoring, and the Patriots’ defense shut out the Archers the rest of the way.
“Sometimes you gotta win ugly, as long as you’re winning the game and pulling it out,” said exuberant first-year Heritage coach Jason Miller.
“I believe in every one of these girls,” he added. “We’re a family, and we believe in each other. These girls just keep fighting, man.”
Miller knows the Patriots are relying on defense to keep them in games. The offense is still a work in progress, as evidenced by the Pats’ dismal 29% shooting from the field (13-for-45).
“We’re going to go as our defense goes,” Miller said. “When our offense catches up to our defense—I’ve been telling people this all year—we’re going to be a problem.”
But Wednesday it was defense. The Patriots used full-court pressure and a variety of half-court zone defenses to frustrate the Archers into 14-of-48 (29%) field goal shooting, including an icy 1-for-17 (6%) on three-point attempts.
“They’ve got a great player on their team (sophomore Bri-Tanya Diedrich-Williams) that can score,” noted Miller. “I thought we did a really good job of shutting her down as much as we possibly could. It was a team effort.”
Diedrich-Williams led all scorers with 20 points, but she had to take a lot of shots (26) to reach that total. Shetler added six.
Krey led the balanced Heritage attack with nine points. Olivia Lybarger, who made a pair of threes in the first half, scored eight. Hess had seven, Elise Hissong five. Audrey and Addison Meyer scored two each.
Heritage hit three out of four free throws (75%); South Side managed only 2-of-10 (20%). The Patriots had 30 turnovers, the Archers 17.
Heritage will host South Adams Saturday to kick off ACAC play. Game time is 6:30 P.M.
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