Lady Horsemen Pull Off a Razor-Thin Win

For the Sleepy Hollow varsity girls basketball team, playing Hastings High School has become a nerve-wracking affair.

The Lady Horsemen squeaked out a win yesterday, narrowly defeating the Yellow Jackets by a score of 37-35.

"We are two evenly matched teams," Sleepy Hollow Head Coach Nick Romeo said before the game. "We're ready to play a full four quarters, or maybe longer."

 The last time the two teams met at Hastings, the Yellow Jackets forced an overtime that Sleepy Hollow eventually won by five points.

"It was a great game," Hastings Head Coach Mike Blanco said. "We forced an overtime, and we had a chance to win, but they beat us on free throws."

Blanco said his team was determined to make another close game, despite the absence of Alex LeFever, one of Hastings' top scorers who was out sick for the day.

The game started off with Brionna Gamble sinking a 3-point shot, which allowed the Lady Horsemen to hold the lead for the first two minutes of the game.

The Yellow Jackets came back and took advantage of steals and missed shots to go on several unanswered scoring drives. They came out on top at the end of the first quarter, 11-13.

Almost all of Sleepy Hollows' first-quarter points (9) were scored by Gamble who had an excellent game, shooting solidly from the outside and driving down the court on fast breaks.

"I haven't had too many good games, so today it was good to go out and be on fire," Gamble said.

The second quarter was fought hard defensively, with Sleepy Hollow tying the game with 2:25 left in the half, and keeping Hastings to only 2 points.

At the break, the Lady Horsemen were up 19-15 with scoring contributions by Gamble, Tauress Campbell, Kelly Bender and Kerry Oliveira.

Sleepy Hollow continued their drive into the third quarter.

"We came out strong in the third to pull away a bit," Romeo said.

Oliveira knotted the first points in the second half off a steal. In all, Sleepy Hollow scored 12 points, giving the girls a comfortable lead of more than 10 points for much of the third quarter. 

It seemed like the game would end with a sizable Sleepy Hollow lead, but the Yellow Jackets were aggressive in the fourth quarter, keeping the Lady Horsemen to only 6 points while securing 12 points of their own.

"I think they came back because we started getting sloppy at the end," Campbell said. "If we would have boxed out more on the outside we might have held them by 15."

With less than a minute left in the game Hastings brought the score to within one point, 35-36, and the pressure was on.

A Hastings foul on Sleepy Hollow's subsequent drive down the court allowed Campbell to make a free throw to put the Horsemen up by 2 points. However, it still left Hastings with a hair over seven seconds to get the ball down court for a shot at winning or tying the game.

The Yellow Jackets' cross-court pass was knocked out of bounds by Sleepy Hollow, stopping the clock at .9 seconds and giving the Yellow Jackets a final attempt to get the ball in bounds and take a shot.

Kerry Oliveira deflected the inbound pass, and the clock hit zero before Hastings could attempt the tying point.

"It's a heartbreaking defeat," Blanco said. "We had a play there to tie it at the end, and Kerry was there and made a great play"

Gamble ended the game with a total of 15 points, Oliveira with 8, Jamie Bucci with 8 and Campbell with 5.

The win gives the Lady Horsemen a 4-2 record in the league heading into the post-season.

"We already clinched a playoff spot," Gamble said. "So hopefully we'll keep winning so that we can get a higher seed and home court advantage, and then hopefully two wins and to the County Center."