Girls basketball: Lilly Craig’s late 3 caps rally, lifts Marquette over Putnam County

OTTAWA – After having big leads slip away from them several times in a very difficult month of the season, the Marquette girls basketball team was finally able to put the shoe on the other foot.

Trailing visiting Putnam County by 14 points with just five minutes left in their Tri-County Conference clash at Bader Gym, the Crusaders excised their recent demons by netting 18 of the final 22 points of the game – the last on a game-winning 3-pointer by Lilly Craig with just 17.3 seconds left – to claim a rollercoaster 44-42 victory over the Panthers.

Marquette’s Chloe Larson popped in a game-tying trey with 45.3 seconds left, the last of her game-best 17 points. PC’s Gracie Ciucci put the visitors on top with a putback at 26.8 to go, but the Crusaders hurried the ball upcourt and found Craig alone at the arc on the left wing for the game-deciding bomb.

Avery Durdan’s steal of an inbounds pass with 7 seconds to go and the resulting free throw with less than a second showing made it a two-point game.

“It just felt like the right time to shoot. I was in my spot, so I just shot it,” said Craig, who had eight of her 14 points in the final quarter. “Shots just weren’t falling in the first half … But at the time, the adrenaline, it just felt like a good shot and it went in.”

The 20-4 fourth quarter erased what had been a dominant middle two periods for the Panthers, who outscored Marquette 31-10 and held the hosts to just three field goals in that stretch to gain that formidable lead in the closing stanza.

Still, the Panthers fall to 21-9 overall 8-4 in the TCC, despite 11 points by Ava Hatton and a game-best eight rebounds by Mikenna Boyd.

“We’ve had a few games this season where we’ve turned games around like this in the fourth, but it’s gone the other way a few times, too,” said Marquette coach Eric Price, his club now 7-5 in the league, 12-14 overall. “A win like this helps the girls believe a little more that we can actually do this.

“The key for us was, after a terrible third quarter when we scored only four points, defensively we played much better. We got after it, raised our energy and sped the game up, then our shots started to fall and that gave us more confidence at both ends of the floor. It got the intensity level more where it needed to be and got us more in the rhythm of the game.

“I’m proud of the girls. They showed a lot of grit tonight.”

The Cru started well behind Larson, who tossed in nine points for a 14-7 lead. But Putnam County crept back in until consecutive deuces by Maggie Richetta tied it at 18. That started a 26-8 burst fueled in part by a trio of treys by Gabby Doyle and capped by another Richetta bucket at 5:28 of the fourth for a 40-26 Panthers’ edge.

But suddenly, Marquette found its energy and scored 10 points in a row, starting with a Larson toss and ending with her 3 to knot the game at 40.

Ciucci rebounded a Hatton miss and put the visitors on top again, but the Cru scramble found Craig open for the winner.

With fouls to give, Marquette ate up much of the final 17.3 seconds and on PC’s final inbounds pass with 7 seconds left, Durdan stole the ball.

“We played pretty well for more than 28 minutes, but it was a pretty rough final 3:30,” PC coach Jared Sale said. “They got hot at the right time, got to the foul line a bunch and some of that was poor decision making on our part. You can’t foul when the other team’s in the bonus and they’re 70 feet away from the basket, have them march to the line. Give Marquette credit, they knocked them down.

“We talked about having a 14-point lead, having your foot on someone’s throat and needing to put them away, and we haven’t done it. Playing tight game after tight game, you can’t expect to pull out a W every time. Eventually someone’s going get you and they got us tonight.”