A clutch 3-point basket by Gwen Williams late in the third quarter was the spark the Fox girls needed to come from behind and defeat Seckman 39-36 on Dec. 16 in the schools’ annual pre-holiday rivalry contest at Imperial.
Williams, a 5-2 junior guard, finished with only five points, but her long trey from just inside the halfcourt line ignited a rally that carried over into the fourth quarter. Senior Aubrey Andrews nailed a 3-ball to start the final period, narrowing the Jaguars’ lead to 31-27. From there Fox, which had built a slim three-point advantage (19-16) at halftime, connected on 12 of 18 free throws to take the lead and preserve it to the final buzzer.
The victory leveled the Warriors’ record at 4-4 while Seckman dipped to 3-4.
“We held them to two points for 7:59 of the third quarter, and then the girl hits the 3,” Seckman head coach Tim Meeks said. “The story of the game is that we outscored them 15-5 in the third, and they outscored us 15-5 in the fourth. We missed some two-footers that we need to finish on, but we still had a good effort in the final quarter.
“One of our goals is to keep our opponents under 40 and we did that, but we fell just a little short at the end.”
Andrews, also a standout soccer player, finished with a game-high 20 for the Warriors, including a 10-for-16 performance at the free throw line, and was the only Fox player in double figures. Senior forward Jami Spreck had 11 points and 10 rebounds for the Jaguars, while Brooke Meeks added seven.
“It was really big, especially for the seniors,” Andrews said of the buzzer-beating heave by Williams. “We wanted this one bad, because Weber (head coach Matt) told us he’d dress up as Santa Claus if we won. That gave us a lot of momentum heading into the fourth (quarter).”
“We’ll take them when we can get them,” Weber said of the long-distance bucket. “We’ll take the win any time, but that was certainly all the momentum we needed going into the fourth quarter. You have to make them (free throws) when they count, and we knew their fouls were up there. This was a game of big runs, and we kept after it.”
Seckman boys outshoot Fox at home
Junior guard Colin Debold scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, while senior RJ Becker and junior Caden Lappe added 10 apiece, leading host Seckman to a 55-42 win over Fox on Dec. 16.
The Jaguars held a precarious 25-21 halftime lead before they displayed some long-range shooting in the third quarter. Becker, Keagan Heitert, Becker again, and Debold all hit 3-point shots to expand the lead to 37-26. But Fox answered with three straight baskets by junior forward Kyle Gast to cut it back to 37-32.
Two buckets by Seckman’s Mason Burris made it 41-32, but Seigo Piatchek’s 3-ball left the Warriors trailing only by six, at 41-35, heading into the final quarter. A conventional three-point play by Fox’s Cayden Keisker made it 41-38, and a score by Gast got the Warriors within two at 42-40.
Lappe scored inside and Debold buried another 3-pointer to give Seckman a 49-42 advantage. From there, Debold and Becker were six-for-six from the free throw line and the Jaguars closed down Fox in the final minutes to improve to 2-3 on the season, while Fox fell to 2-4.
The Warriors got 12 points apiece from Gast and sophomore Brayden Pizzo, but the visitors were their own worst enemies at the free-throw line, sinking only four of 14 attempts.
“We competed pretty well, for how physical the game was,” said Fox head coach Mike Wilken. “We got a lot of good shots but missed some open ones. Credit to (Seckman), though, for kicking the door open on their shots. Our guys fought hard, and having a chance late was a good thing.”
Seckman head coach Travis Williams called this his team’s best game so far, “as far as shooting the ball, and reading the open man.
“It was big, and got the momentum going,” Debold said of the third-quarter barrage of 3-pointers. “The shots just started falling. With such a young team, I hope a win like this boosts our confidence, and we can build on this.”