Girls basketball: Late free throws lift Amboy past Hall

AMBOY – After watching Hall erase a double-digit deficit to take the lead late in the fourth quarter Wednesday, Amboy knew it had to figure out a way to battle back if it wanted a chance to win the title at its own holiday tournament.

Despite ice-cold shooting after halftime, the Clippers made enough hustle plays and free throws down the stretch to rally for a 37-36 win in their pool-play game against the Red Devils.

“It was a lot of ups and downs, but I think we just wanted it more and we out-hustled them,” said senior Maeve Larson, who hit the game-winning free throws with five seconds remaining. “It feels really good to win. We know we’ve got a good chance for first place in this tournament now, so we feel really good about it.”

[ Photos from Amboy vs. Hall girls basketball ]

Trailing 34-29 with 3:03 to play, Amboy (11-4) was forced to get creative with its shots not falling. Addison Pertell hit two free throws, then after a defensive stop, Elly Jones found herself at the foul line after rebounding a teammate’s miss. She hit the first and missed the second, but Larson grabbed the offensive rebound and was fouled. She went to the line and also hit the first and missed the second – but Kiera Karlson was there for another offensive rebound and the putback.

It was the only field goal in the final 14:20 of the game for the Clippers and pushed them ahead 35-34 with 1:04 remaining. It ended a string of 16 straight missed shots, many of which were good looks that came in the flow of the offense.

But Hall (6-9) answered right back, pushing the ball quickly up the court before Haylie Pellegrini threw a pass over the top to Natalia Zamora – who had just entered the game when Kennedy Wozniak fouled out – for a layup to retake the lead with 54 seconds to play.

The Red Devils forced an Amboy miss and corralled the rebound, calling timeout to avoid a turnover after they got the ball across half court. But after the timeout, the inbounds pass hit out of bounds, and the ball went back to Amboy.

The Clippers called timeout with 17 seconds to go to set up a final play. Pertell found her way into the lane, but her shot was off; this time, the hustle play belonged to Tyrah Vaessen, who leaped to save the ball from going out of bounds and tipped it back to a teammate in the left corner.

“Those plays were huge. They definitely put us in position to win the game,” Jones said. “That just shows heart. We were down by five, but we just hustled and made plays. We knew they had the momentum, but we just didn’t give up. We wanted it more. I think that’s what it came down to.”

The Clippers moved the ball around and got it into Larson in the low post, and a foul was called on Larson’s shot attempt with 5.4 seconds left to put her at the line. She calmly swished both free throws.

Hall hurried the ball up the court but turned it over on a traveling violation with 0.3 seconds to play.

“I think it was just hustle and heart,” Jones reiterated. “Personally, I missed a lot of shots, but that happens; everyone has off nights, and luckily Maeve was on fire. We just kept telling each other, ‘You’ll hit the next one, you’re fine, let’s go play D.’ We were able to make up for it on defense.”

Larson was indeed red hot in the first half, hitting 6 of her 9 shots and scoring nine of the final 10 points of the second quarter as part of a 14-0 run to propel Amboy to a 22-11 halftime lead.

But Hall came out of the break firing on all cylinders on both ends of the court. The Red Devils closed the third quarter on a 15-0 run, and Wozniak’s coast-to-coast layup off her steal tied the game at 26 before she hit another layup off a pretty feed from Ella Sterling in the high post for a 28-26 lead heading into the fourth.

“When we play against a zone, at times we tend to settle for 3s and just kind of go one pass and shot or two passes and shot, and it kind of gets us out of our flow,” Hall coach TJ Orlandi said. “When we’re working the ball, moving it, getting it to the high post and low post and short corner, we just open a lot more up offensively and we start getting points in the paint and layups.”

The Red Devils assisted on all but one of their 15 baskets in the game and shot 7 for 9 in the third quarter to turn the double-digit deficit into their first lead since early in the second quarter.

Another Wozniak basket inside, then a runout layup by Charlie Pellegrini – both off assists from Haylie Pellegrini – and a lob over the top from Wozniak in the high post to Sterling down low pushed the margin to 34-29 and forced an Amboy timeout.

“We were kind of stressing to just chip away, chip away, one possession at a time. I thought our defense was really good in the second half; they only had three field goals, and I thought we really kind of locked in,” Orlandi said. “They made some free throws down the stretch, and that’s just how it goes sometimes. But it was just a good, back-and-forth, hard-played game. It’s good for our girls to be in those kind of games and get that kind of experience of late-game pressure, playing with a lead, playing from behind.”

Larson finished with 20 points, three rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot, while Jones added seven points, six rebounds and four steals for Amboy. Pertell and Emily Sachs finished with four points and three rebounds each; Pertell also had four assists and two steals. Karlson had seven rebounds to go with her late putback, and Vaessen chipped in 10 rebounds.

Wozniak led the Red Devils with 12 points and seven rebounds, and she also had three steals and two assists. McKenna Christiansen added eight points and six rebounds, and Sterling had six points, three rebounds, five assists and three steals. Charlie Pellegrini finished with five points, three steals and two assists, and Haylie Pellegrini chipped in three points, two rebounds and four assists.