Lady Mustang hoopsters rally past Hollister for 56-53 win in
overtime.
GILROY – The Lady Mustang basketball team used a relentless defense combined with some timely shooting to erase a seven-point halftime deficit and outlast rival Hollister down the stretch in Tuesday’s 56-53 overtime victory.
“In practice, we’ve been working on end-of-the-game type situations so we’re just ready for them. Today was definitely another close one so we just came through in the end,” said senior Danell Dow, who finished with seven points, including a critical fourth-quarter trey. “This is exactly what I expected. They were coming back and they wanted revenge, but we just shut them down.”
The Lady Mustangs (4-3 in T-CAL, 14-9 overall) completed a season-sweep of the Lady Haybalers (2-5 in T-CAL) – winning two tight ball games by two in San Benito and three in Gilroy. They are currently riding a three-game winning streak.
“We both match up really well so we did expect a good game,” said senior captain Laura Hennessee, who netted a team-high 22 points. “You could hear (the crowd) and it just brings up our intensity level on defense. We have to play defense and that’s all we did in the fourth quarter.”
Gilroy trimmed the gap to three by the end of the third quarter and eventually took the lead early in the fourth quarter. The lead changed hands six times in the final quarter alone along with two tie scores – including a knot at 52-52 to end regulation.
“I think it’s not just confidence. It’s teamwork. We trust each other more and more. It think that’s why we lost some of our games. We didn’t trust each other,” said junior center Sarah Hoeft, who tallied 12 points. “Now it’s like I believe they can do this, I believe they can do that and I know they can spin and move, and I know they can make a three-pointer. We will be making mistakes, but it’s part of being a team.”
Team defense brought Gilroy back in the second half and then got even stingier in overtime – denying Hollister even one basket. The Lady Haybalers lone point in the extra session came on an Erika Rodriguez free throw.
“Overtime, they scored one free throw and they didn’t really get many shots off either, and we shot and shot and shot and didn’t get them to go in,” said head coach Kari Williams, whose squad needed only four points in overtime for the win. “Our defense just took care of the other part of it. It was a great, great effort – especially at the end. We had a 16-second stand down there.”
After Hennessee sank a pair of free throws to put Gilroy up by three with 16 ticks left, the Lady Mustangs did not allow Hollister to get a shot off before the final buzzer.
“I just think we executed our offense,” Williams said. “They were playing very hard defense on Laura as a lot of teams are now. She still took care of the ball. She still ran the offense. She still made things happen and she still scored a lot of points.”
Up next, the Lady Mustangs head to Notre Dame-Salinas for a Thursday 7 p.m. match-up before a crucial Feb. 18 road game against North Salinas at 7 p.m.
“We can’t go in and say, ‘girls let’s just try our hardest.’ We have to go in and say, ‘girls we have three basketball games left and we want to win all three of them. How are we going to do that?,'” Williams said. “No one’s figured out how to do that in our league against Notre Dame so somebody has to.
“We’re going to go in. We’re going to play hard. We’re going to make them play basketball,” the coach added. “Hopefully, make a game out of it and give them their first real contest in the league.”
