Girls basketball: Putnam County’s parade to foul line upends Marquette

GRANVILLE – The goal of every basketball team is to make the most of its opportunities, wherever and whenever they come. If they happen to come at the free-throw line, so be it.

In a game that was physical at both ends, Putnam County made out much better than visiting Marquette by getting to the charity stripe 30 times, making 16 of those chances – including a key 8 of 15 in the fourth quarter alone. It enabled the Panthers to rally from behind and claim a 43-37 Tri-County Conference victory over the Crusaders at R.M. Germano Gymnasium on Wednesday night.

Ava Hatton scored eight of her game-best 21 points in the final period, three of those on a tie-breaking 3-pointer from the right wing with 6:39 left, to help lift the Panthers to 9-5 overall, 3-3 in the conference and drop the Cru to 5-5, 2-2.

The glut of fouls spelled double trouble for Marquette, not only sending PC to the line half of its points down the stretch, but also sending three of its starters to the bench with foul trouble for much of the night. What was on the court for the visitors was so out of sync offensively it managed to shoot only 31.7% (13 of 41) from the field, were outrebounded by PC 40-27 and managed only a team-high 10 points from sharpshooter Lilly Craig.

“This might be the guttiest performance we’ve had this year,” Putnam County coach Jared Sale said. “We were tough as nails tonight, especially on the glass, and did a great job on Craig. We felt we had to have this one tonight, and the girls took care of business.

“It’s funny, we’ve had these really poor starts time and time again, but the third quarter has been our best quarter all year long. It’s not even close, the point differential between that and any other quarter, and it was no different tonight … They fouled us seven times in the first half and I felt if we could continue to be strong with the basketball, they would continue to foul, and that’s what we executed in the second half. It made a huge difference.”

The Panthers turned the ball over on their first four possessions of the game, but had only eight miscues the rest of the night as they fought back to an 8-8 tie, then grew more and more patient as the game progressed.

Marquette, which lost center Avery Durdan for much of the half with fouls, still used a Craig trey and a Keely Nelson deuce to finish the half with a 20-13 advantage.

However, the Panthers came out with 11 of the first 14 points of the third quarter, including a go-ahead pair of free throws by Maggie Richetta.

Again, a trey by Craig with 7.2 seconds left in the third gave the Cru their last lead at 30-28, as starting the fourth Hatton dished to Richetta for a bucket, then canned her lead-changing 3-pointer.

Marquette, mired in a 5 for 19 shooting second half, was forced to foul to catch up, leading to PC’s parade to the stripe. Two Gabby Doyle free throws capped a 12-4 burst for a 40-34 edge.

Gracie Ciucci had 10 points and nine rebounds and Mikenna Boyd nine boards for PC.

“I felt like we got in a rut where we kept getting away from what was working, and having three starters in foul trouble didn’t help with that and bogged down the offense a bit,” Marquette coach Eric Price said. “We let Hatton go off a little bit, she got to the line a lot, they all got to the line a lot and they got too many second-chance points. They got too many offensive rebounds and must have come up with 90% of the 50-50 balls tonight.

“But we can’t give up 30 free throws and expect to be in the game. That’s two games in a row. Last time, [in a 54-44 loss to Roanoke-Benson] they shot 26 free throws and we shot eight. Tonight they shot 30 and we shot 10. We can’t keep doing that. We have to find a way to stop that.”