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By Denise Tucker
In sports, as well as in most areas of life, you always hope for a chance to redeem yourself.
Rogersville’s Maci McHenry got that chance on Wednesday afternoon.
With fouls to give and down 45-43, the third-seeded Ozark Lady Tigers had Rogersville backed up to the baseline with the length of the floor to go and 1:04 remaining in their Pink Division quarterfinal game at Drury University’s O’Reilly Family Events Center.
“We just tried to deny as hard as we can and they went back to get the ball and we fouled at that point,” Ozark coach David Brewer said. “It just kept working itself back and we got lucky enough to get a baseline situation. That worked to our advantage because that’s a normal pressing situation.”
Rogersville – the sixth seed – turned the ball over, opening the door for Ozark. Senior Bre Johnson found guard Madie Braden, who hit a go-ahead 3-pointer to give the Lady Tigers a 46-45 lead with 50 to go.
The Lady Wildcats worked the ball to their end of the floor, but McHenry lost it out of bounds, giving the ball back to Ozark with 32.3 seconds left.
Just as Ozark had done to them about 30 seconds earlier, the Lady Wildcats proceeded to foul the Lady Tigers and finally got them to the free-throw line for a one-and-one opportunity. Ozark missed the front end, Jordyn Gault corralled the long rebound and Rogersville immediately called time out with 14.1 seconds on the clock and the ball at half court.
Maci McHenry hit a driving layup from the right side to give the Lady Wildcats a 47-46 lead with 9.1 seconds left.
Ozark worked the ball up the floor and a deep 3-point shot from the top of the key by Braden with 4 seconds to go bounced off the rim. Johnson got the rebound, but Jordyn Gault’s block preserved the Pink & White Lady Classic win for Rogersville.
“We ran the play for her at the end because I thought they (Ozark) might think we were going to go to either Jordyn Gault or Sarah Jordan on something like that, so I thought we’d run it to my daughter (Maci),” Rogersville coach Denny McHenry said. “We run something similar to that, it’s just not out of a half-court, sideline out-of-bounds play.
“I thought they would have to guard us hard enough not to give us a shot, that we’d get a one-on-one there and she did a great job and then made the shot. Making that shot is not always the easiest thing.”
Ozark trailed Rogersville by 12 points late in the first half before getting a conventional three-point play, and two 3-pointers from Johnson, the latter from the top of the key at the first-half buzzer to give the Lady Tigers the momentum.
“We talked about some things we did well to get back in the game,” Ozark coach David Brewer said. “We were down 12-13 in the first half and rallied at the end of the first half and put us in position; raised our energy level up.”
The start of the second half was a back-and-forth affair, with Ozark taking its first lead of the game (30-29) on a baseline drive by Mikayla Putt. And the remainder of the game continued to be a see-saw match.
Jenna Gault hit a 3-pointer from the wing to put Rogersville up 45-43 with 2:15 to go. That is when Ozark began to foul, forcing the Lady Wildcats back the baseline.
The Lady Tigers got the go-ahead 3-pointer from Braden (46-45) and Rogersville used what fouls it had to give.
“We’re sitting in a situation where we have zero or one team foul with a minute and a half left and we’ve got to execute,” Brewer said. “They did a good job of getting the fouls and running time off the clock. We put ourselves on the free-throw line with a one-point lead to make some free throws and didn’t make them. But we executed at that point, so that’s some positives.”
McHenry said his team was prepared for the situation.
“So, when they were shooting free throws, we said that we wanted to get it to half-court and call a timeout,” McHenry said. “We said, ‘this is what we were talking about and this is why you play in these tournaments. These teams are going to make you better.’
“We’re grinders. We sit in there and played it toe to toe, and fortunately for us, we were the ones that made the last shot.”
Rogersville meets No. 2 seed Strafford, a 60-46 winner over West Plains, in the semifinals at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Ozark takes on West Plains at 2 p.m. in the consolation bracket.
NO. 6 ROGERSVILLE 47, NO. 3 OZARK 46
Pink Division game
OZARK (6-3) – 9-15-15-7—46
ROGERSVILLE (9-2) – 16-10-11-10—47
OZARK – Mikayla Putt 15, Madie Braden 13, Macey Putt 12, Bre Johnson 6.
ROGERSVILLE – Jordan Gault 15, Jenna Gault 6, Hailey Brown 6, Sarah Posey 6, Maci McHenry 4, Sarah Jordan 4, Sydney Dunavant 2, Taylor Overstreet 2, Hannah Hefley 2.
