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By Kai Raymer (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Skyline Lady Tigers were about to run out of time.
Tipton held an eight-point lead with four minutes remaining in Friday night’s Class 3 Show-Me Showdown semifinals at Hammons Student Center in Springfield.
Skyline, normally a good 3-point shooting team, couldn’t buy a perimeter shot. Tipton continued to break through Skyline’s pressure defense.
The Lady Tigers never lost faith.
“We just had to keep fighting and… work as a team,” said Skyline guard Miranda Quennoz. “We had to go rebound and just find a way to do it.”
Skyline, behind some timely free throw shooting and in-your-face defense down the stretch, outlasted Tipton 58-52 in overtime.
Quennoz scored a game-high 24 and went 12-for-13 at the free throw line.
Just as key: Skyline’s team defense. Over the final four minutes of regulation, Skyline forced turnovers on three of four Tipton possessions.
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“I felt like we finally got (Tipton) to be uncomfortable,” said Skyline coach Kevin Cheek. “We hadn’t done that the entire game. And we finally started rebounding.”
An undersized Skyline team also got a big lift from reserve Grace Edge, who scored 10 points. Justine Barb added nine points and 12 rebounds.
Skyline will play Lift for Life, a charter school from St. Louis, at 8 p.m. Saturday at JQH Arena in the Class 3 championship game.
Skyline will be seeking its seventh state championship in program history and first since 2017.
“Getting through districts gave this group a lot of confidence,” Cheek said. “I’ve been telling them all year, ‘I think we’re good enough to go (to state). We just have to start doing the right things.’ Somewhere about mid-February, they started doing the right things really well.”
Expect a tight, defensive-minded matchup on Saturday.
“We don’t know any other way (to play),” Cheek said, laughing. “Common sense would probably tell you to do something different. This group here doesn’t know how to do it any other way. We’ll tip it off about 8 o’clock and see how it comes out.”
Quennoz’s three-point play midway through the fourth quarter ignited Skyline’s game-changing run.
The bucket and free throw cut Tipton’s lead to 47-42. A few Tipton turnovers later, Skyline went ahead 48-47 on two Quennoz free throws.
“I think our blitz (defense) helped toward the end,” Quennoz said. “It was definitely a team effort.”
Tipton sophomore Myra Claas scored with 18 seconds left to make it 49-all and force overtime, but Skyline dominated the extra frame.
The Lady Tigers, who won 65-49 at Tipton in late December, were 7-for-8 at the free throw line in overtime.
Skyline had a decisive edge in turnovers. The Lady Tigers forced Tipton into 22 turnovers while only commiting four of their own.
“The kids did a nice job of handling the basketball and making the free throws down the stretch,” Cheek said.
Claas scored a team-high 22 for Tipton. Macie Edwards added eight points and 18 rebounds, but fouled out midway through overtime.
Tipton dominated the boards, out-rebounding Skyline 45-26.
With 3-pointers not falling either, the Lady Tigers attacked the rim relentlessly all night.
Several drives ended in missed shots or Tipton blocks, but the Lady Tigers also drew many fouls.
Overall, Skyline shot 22-for-27 at the free throw line. Tipton was 5-for-11 at the line.
“Those tall arms are hard to play over sometimes,” Quennoz said of Tipton’s interior defense.
Skyline had an uncharacteristic night from the perimeter. The Lady Tigers missed all 10 of their 3-point attempts.
“It blows my mind because we’ve shot about 600 3-pointers on the season,” Cheek said. “We didn’t look to shoot 3s tonight, for whatever reason. We talked about that at halftime. We finally got something going.”
Skyline 58, Tipton 52 (OT)
Skyline 13 12 6 18 9 — 58
Tipton 10 15 11 13 3 — 52
Skyline (27-4 overall) – Miranda Quennoz 24, Grace Edge 10, Justine Barb 9, Alyee Gunter 8, Emma Crawford 5, Riley Conly 2
Tipton (25-5 overall) – Myra Claas 22, Kenna Bixler 11, Macie Edwards 8, Briar Cox 6, Kiley Bailey 5
