The Potomac Highlands Dispatch - the online newspaper

Hose sinks free throw in final seconds to lift Falcons
* Miners turn ball over 23 times
* Broadwater's 3-point attempt at buzzer comes up short

By The Potomac Highlands Dispatch
SHORT GAP, W.Va., Jan. 17 - Never one to be at a loss for words, Frankfort girls basketball coach Erin McKenzie's first attempt at talking about her team's 38-37 win over Mountain Ridge wasn't by way of explanation.

It might have been a sigh of relief.

"We always give people their money's worth," McKenzie quipped after the third-ranked Falcons pulled out a one-point Appalachian Mountain Athletic Conference win against the No. 5 Miners.

McKenzie said she team realized early on the Falcons weren't shooting as well as they normally do.

"The game plan was not to let (miners sophomore forward Shae) Winner touch the ball," McKenzie said.

Instead of shooting well, the Falcons turned to playing defense. Frankfort forced 23 turnovers and held Winner to only eight points.

It took nearly every second for Frankfort to turn a bad night shooting from the floor into a win. Savannah Hose's free throw with 4.6 seconds left in regulation sealed the Falcons' 38-37 victory - but was confirmed only when freshman Anna Broadwater's 3-point attempt at the buzzer came up just a bit short.

The Miners' Madi Nightengale hit the first of two free throw attempts with 2:18 to go in the fourth quarter to pull Mountain Ridge within 34-32. On the ensuing rebound off Nightengale's second attempt, teammate Shae Winner drew the foul and hit two free throws toe knot the score at 34.

Reserve Emily Blankenship hit the second of two foul shots with 57.1 seconds on the clock to give Frankfort a tenuous 35-34 lead. But Winner missed two attempts at the charity stripe for the Miners that only seemed to clinch the win for Frankfort.

Of course, if that was how it ended, the game wouldn't merit nearly the number of videos it did. Instead, Maddie Shambaugh hit both ends of a one-and-one to put the Falcons up 37-34 with 31.8 seconds to go. The game, it seemed, was over.

But Nightengale, who finished with a game-high 19 points, tied the game 13 seconds later when she took the inbounds pass from Emily Greig, dribbled across the top of the key and shot from the far side just beyond the 3-point line. The crowd - there were as many Miners red, gold and black shirts in the bleachers as there were sky-blue Frankfort - erupted.

Fourteen seconds later, though, Greig drew her fifth foul to put Hose at the line with 4.6 seconds left in the fourth quarter. She made one of two - which was good enough.

It almost wasn't. Winner grabbed the rebound from Hose's missed foul shot and quickly passed off to freshman Sarah Raines. Raines made a half-court pass to Broadwater, who planted and, guarded loosely on the fast break by Frankfort sophomore Katie Jan, put up a 3-point attempt that almost made it.

"They don't give up. They keep playing and make it interesting," Miners coach Valery Broadwater said of her young team. "I think we've competed with everybody that we've played."