High school girls basketball: Bruins survive OT thriller with Timpview

PROVO — The Mountain View Bruins are getting used to making the big comeback, especially against the Timpview T-Birds.

The last time these two teams played, the Timpview girls held an early 21-point lead only to end up on the losing end of the game. And this time, they raced out to three early 12-point advantages before dropping yet another to the Bruins, this one in overtime 51-44.

Timpview, yet again hurried off to a 16-4 start and led 20-8 after a layup by Rebecca Watson early in the second quarter, but that was as long as they could hold onto the advantage.

Mountain View dug in its heels and scrapped and clawed its way back into the contest, outscoring the T-Birds 10-2 in the second quarter and only finding itself down 20-18 in the low scoring first half.

"That's the way we play against Timpview. We give up too many points in the first quarter and then play catchup the whole game. We changed our defense in the second quarter and only allowed two points. We had to go into our bag of tricks to come up with that defense," said Mountain View coach Andrew Blanchard, who noted that it's a defense his team doesn't use or practice often, but Timpview had trouble with it the last time the two teams played.

The two teams battled through three lead changes and four ties in the third period before going into the nail biting fourth.

Neither team held more than a three point lead in the fourth stanza, but with just over a minute to go, Timpview did go up 38-35 on a lay-up by MaryAnne Morrow, who finished the game with 12 for the T-Birds. Christina Augustin then returned the favor and put her team to within one with a lay up of her own. Morrow made it 39-37 with 15 seconds left.

Then it was Mountain View's turn to set up a play out of a timeout, and set it up they did.

"We had a play set there with 15 seconds left. We got Christina the ball in the post and she finished. You've gotta be a gamer with 15 seconds left and down two, to finish that off like she did," said Blanchard.

Augustin dropped the lay-up in the hoop off a nice pass from Aja Domingo to tie things up and send it into overtime.

And overtime belonged to the Bruins from the tip off.

"We took control early in overtime, and built a lead that was tough to come back on. We pulled one out of the hat there. I have to give Timpview credit tonight. They got after it," said Blanchard.

But his team got after it too, especially with their clutch play in the fourth quarter and in overtime. Aja Domingo gave her team a boost in overtime, finishing with 10 points, and Anjie Lines continued a night packed with tough play to finish with a game-high 19.

The truly clutch play for the Bruins might have come at the line in overtime, however.

After shooting only 3-12 from the stripe in regulation, Mountain View came out strong in the overtime period with a 6-7 showing from the stripe, showing they can shoot them when they need to.

Chelsea Bridgewater finished the game with a team-high 15 points for the T-Birds.

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