East Oregonian
Everyone’s heard of a win at the buzzer, a basket that threads the hoop as time expires to give one team a Mardi Gras-like celebration and the victory. But the Weston-McEwen girls did one better Saturday night at Stanfield in a Blue Mountain Conference game. The TigerScots actually won 51-50 after the game clocks were locked on zero, and it was sophomore Molly von Borstel who took them there.
Trailing 50-48, von Borstel brought down a missed shot by teammate Morgan Entze on the offensive end. She skipped the ball off the glass and in for two points and a tie as the buzzer sounded through the gym at Stanfield High. Then there was silence. Von Borstel had been fouled. She had a chance for a single un-timed free throw, a shot to win the game with no defense, no other players even on the floor.
Entze, a senior team captain, pulled von Borstel aside as she made for the free throw line island in the middle of a sea of held breaths.
“Don’t worry, don’t even think about anything,” Entze said to her teammate. “Let’s talk about Care Bears, teddy bears, just anything besides this.”
Von Borstel laughed. Then she swished the charity shot. Then the TigerScots (9-4, 4-0 BMC) won the game.
“We had to get really close to the basket; we needed to get some drive shots in to score,” von Borstel said of her positioning under the basket as the seconds seeped away. That had been the plan the entire second half as the TigerScots gnawed away at a 25-14 halftime-deficit.
Stanfield (7-7, 1-3 BMC) controlled the game from the outset — at least on the scoreboard — while holding a lead for every second of the game. None of that time matters much when the outcome doesn’t go in your favor, Stanfield coach Candace Valentine said.
While the girls in TigerScot red and black screamed with exuberance, the Tigers on the other bench looked like they’d had one stolen from them.
“You don’t know what to say to the girls as a coach,” Valentine said. “I mean, we box out one more time in that game and it’s a different story.”
The Tigers did more than their share of boxing out in the first half while churning out a big lead. Kaci Kamm scored 16 points and grabbed 12 rebounds but her early game successes faded behind the TigerScots second-half barrage. Von Borstel finished with 20 points and 19 rebounds and Entze added another 21, with 17 of them coming after intermission.
After playing a step slow during the first half, the TigerScots looked like they were moving in fast forward after some time to talk things out at halftime. The team shot twice the percentage in the second half as in the first, about 40 percent versus 20 percent.
“In the second half, they made a decision to play,” said Amber Doremus, Weston-McEwen head coach. “All eight of them together, there would be no more standing around.”
The win keeps Weston-McEwen undefeated in league play and on top of the Blue Mountain standings.