At the end of a season it’s common for teams to reflect on moments that either made or broke their playoff chances.
Wildcat senior Heidi McNeill provided the Oak Harbor girls basketball team with one of those memorable make-or-break moments Wednesday night in a thrilling 57-56 victory over Lake Stevens.
With only 8.8 seconds remaining in the game and trailing by one, 56-55, Oak Harbor inbounded the ball from half-court. After a quick pass to senior Shirley Spears, the ball was dished to junior Jenny White, who received an open look at a three-pointer. White’s shot barely missed, skimming off the rim to the left side of the basket where McNeill was waiting to snatch her twelfth rebound of the contest.
Just before time expired she pulled up for an eight-foot jumper from the left baseline, which softly rolled around the rim and dropped in as the buzzer sounded.
“I didn’t know how much time was left on the clock,” McNeill said. “I was hoping to get in close to the basket but it kind of rolled away from my hands, so as soon as I got it, I just shot it.”
“I saw it was pretty much on target and it rolled around on the rim and went in.”
The shot provided Oak Harbor with a crucial league win and sent the crowd and players into a frenzy.
“I can’t take too many of those,” head coach Brett McLeod said, laughing.
The play didn’t work exactly like McLeod had drawn it up in the time-out, but he won’t complain.
“Heidi just made a big play getting to the ball,” McLeod said. “She had missed some outside shots and then she made that clutch shot down the stretch.”
After taking a 12 point lead at the end of the third quarter, a fourth quarter scoring drought by Oak Harbor opened the doors for Lake Stevens to get back in the game. The Vikings seemed to hit just about everything they put up, completing a 12-0 run and tying the game, 49-49 on a Maisie Todd three-pointer with 2:40 left.
“They really started hitting, and we really started going cold,” McLeod said.
The Wildcats didn’t score their first points of the fourth quarter until sophomore Amanda Watts hit a jump shot with 2:05 remaining, giving the Cats a 51-49 advantage. From that point on, it was a back-and-forth battle between the two teams.
“They had a little momentum going and we’ve to get better at stopping those runs,” McLeod said.”
A major plus in the contest came from the Oak Harbor bench.
“Keeley Smollack gave us some real good minutes and Felicia Hill,” McLeod said. “They just came in and gave us a chance to hang in there.”
“Depth is our biggest question and I thought today our depth really helped us.”
McNeill ended the contest with a game high 24 points and 12 rebounds. Spears added 15 and junior Kaylea Kingma had 11.
Oak Harbor next plays at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Jan. 15 at Mount Vernon.
Oak Harbor— 17 14 18 8—57
Lake Stevens—16 11 10 19—56
Scoring—OH: McNeill 24, Spears 15, Kingma 11, Watts 5, White 2.
LS: Holloway 22, Todd 11, Carbonato 9, Whitman 5, Estes 5, West 2, Cochran 2.
Records : OH 4-1, 6-2; LS 1-3, 5-3.
