Hora?s heroics help Huskies

Quite simply, it was a crazy final minute at Highland on Monday night.

The host Huskies were tied with WACO with 1:04 left to play, but Highland?s Chelsey Lampe had just fouled out, sending WACO?s Aaliyah Brown to the line for a one-and-one situation.

Brown missed the free throw, but Highland was left without the girl, Lampe, who is typically the catalyst for the Huskies? offense.

?It was hard to watch it, because I knew someone needed to control it out there,? Lampe said after the game. ?I talked to Cheyann (Adamson) and she did a good job slowing the girls down and keeping the girls calm.?

Adamson took charge after the missed free throw with a 3-pointer, giving the Huskies a 53-50 lead.

?They were telling us to take the ball slow, not to panic,? Adamson said. ?I knew that when Chelsey was out, I?d have to take the role of her spot, and that was a challenge.?

WACO wasn?t quite out of it yet.

An inside layup by Brown brought the Warriors within one point, but the Huskies had a pair of opportunities to put the Warriors away.

Both of their one-and-one opportunities were fruitless, and when WACO came back down the floor, Erika Liechty was fouled.

Liechty hit both of her free throws to give WACO a 54-53 lead, and Highland couldn?t get a shot off on the other end, turning the ball over.

The Huskies were forced to foul, and WACO?s Jennie Greene hit the first free throw to make it a two-point game.

The second was off the mark, and Highland was off to the races.

With the clock running, the thought of calling a timeout was quickly dismissed by Highland head coach Jody Fink.

?I wasn?t going to a call a timeout and let (WACO) set up a defense,? Fink said. ?We were going to try to get to the basket or get that corner shot.?

Adamson led the charge down the floor, but as the defense collapsed on her, she found sophomore Kelsey Hora deep in the offensive end, and then it felt like time was stopped as she let loose on the 3-pointer with two seconds left on the clock.

?I saw Cheyann coming down and I saw the other girls collapsing on her, so I was the only wide-open girl she could see,? Hora said. ?I was just hoping it would go in. I thought it was going to be blocked when I shot it, actually. It felt like it was going in.?

When the shot fell through the net, the celebration began, as Highland (11-2) took a 56-55 victory over WACO (8-6).

?It?s a good win,? Lampe said. ?This is the closest game we?ve had yet this season, and we had some good competition and someone to play against. It was good for us.?

On the opposite side of the game was heartbreak, as a WACO team that seemed to dominate the tempo all game fell just short of the upset.

?They were upset about it,? WACO head coach Shannon Rugg said. ?They thought we should have won, and other than the last 30 seconds of each half, we outplayed them. It is what it is, and we have another game (on Tuesday night), so we have to come back and be ready to go.?

The entire game felt like a dog fight, with neither team leading by more than six points throughout the first 12 minutes of the game.

Jennie Greene hit a 3-pointer late in the second quarter to give WACO a 28-20 lead, but Highland closed the second half on a 6-0 run to make it 28-26 at halftime.

?They took away our inside game early, then Jennie (Greene) hit some 3-pointers to spread them out a little bit, then we got the ball inside,? Rugg said. ?This is a group of seniors that trust each other to do the right things.?

In the second half, the two teams traded blows, the largest lead coming at 38-33, in favor of Highland in the middle of the third quarter.

Tied at 50, late in the fourth, WACO missed back-to-back one-and-one attempts, before Lampe fouled out for the Huskies, and the crazy final minute began, and Hora delivered the knockout punch.

?We like to run and that?s no secret,? Fink said. ?Tonight, they ran more than we did. They really pushed it and we didn?t do a good job of getting back at them. We should be going all the time, and we just weren?t ourselves.?

Both teams will turn around quickly to play games on Tuesday night, with Highland hosting IMS, and WACO traveling to Louisa-Muscatine.