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NSM advances to state finals
Published February 23, 2010
BIRMINGHAM — North Sand Mountain's state championship hopes live on.
Lacy Huckabee scored six straight points for her team during a key fourth-quarter stretch and the No. 7 Bison made some crucial free throws in the closing seconds to down R.C. Hatch 68-66 in the Class 2A state semifinals Tuesday night.
NSM (28-6) will play for its first state championship Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. against No. 2 Clements (33-3), which defeated Barbour County 59-39 in Tuesday's other semifinal.
"I told these girls at the start of the year to keep a scrapbook," said NSM coach Michael Wilborn, "because I knew it was going to be a special year."
After falling behind 6-0 to start the game, NSM put together a 16-2 run over the next nine-plus minutes. Chelsea Siniard's 3-pointer gave the Bison a 19-9 lead with 5:44 left in the second quarter, and NSM eventually led by a many as 16 in the first half before taking a 34-22 lead into intermission.
"I thought we were in good shape at halftime," Wilborn said, "but in the third quarter we didn't come out and put them away."
R.C. Hatch (18-8) whittled NSM's lead to 49-45 entering the fourth quarter, then took the lead at 50-49 following Marqueisha Howard's bucket with 6:51 to play.
But NSM answered quickly, getting a 3-point play from Lauren Cummins 12 seconds later. Eboni Smith's basket tied it at 54-all, but that's when Huckabee took charge for NSM.
The junior point guard, who sat for most of the game because of foul trouble, made back-to-back layups and two foul shots to give NSM a 60-54 advantage with 3:36 to play.
"I just knew my team really needed me to step up," Huckabee said.
R.C. Hatch battled back again however, pulling within 65-64 on Smith's jumper with 24 seconds to play. After Chelsea Ellison sank two free throws for NSM, Smith's potential tying 3-point was off the mark. Ashley Wilkins got the putback with 2.9 seconds remaining to trim NSM's lead to one, but R.C. Hatch didn't foul NSM until just two-tenths of second remained.
"We just made plays when we needed to," Wilborn said.
Ellison finished with a team-high 18 points. Huckabee had 14 points, six rebounds and three assists while Cummins posted 12 points and 13 rebounds. Seventh-grader Keely Ellison scored 10 points while contributing important minutes with Huckabee on the bench in foul trouble.
"Not many seventh-graders can come in a game like this at state and make plays like she did," Wilborn said.
Smith scored a game-high 26 points for R.C. Hatch, which also got 18 from Kristy Lipscomb.
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