When the South girls basketball team (7-7) entered the locker room at the end of the first half versus the Class 3A No. 5 Owen Valley Patriots, coach Larry Winters was tasked with finding the words that would help get his players back from a 23-30 halftime deficit. Whatever Winters said must have caught their attention, because the second half yielded a 54-49 decision that pushed the Panthers back to .500.
“The speech during halftime really helped us turn things around; we didn’t want a team coming onto our court and beating us,” junior Addy Blackwell said.
The Panthers, led by Blackwell’s 19-point outing, found the free throw line at a much higher rate in the latter half, with 15 free throw attempts coming in the fourth quarter alone. The team didn’t shoot particularly well from the line, hitting only 14-24 overall, but they hit just enough to keep the Patriots at bay. Blackwell shot 6-7 from the charity stripe while sophomore Kristen Ridner went 3-4 in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. “We practice free throws in these situations all the time, all you can do is walk up to the line and knock it down with confidence,” Blackwell said.
Ridner contributed 10 points and seven rebounds and found herself on the line at several key moments towards the end of the game. Despite the weight that these shots had on the outcome of the game, Ridner was able to overcome the nerves and sink her final three free throws. She knew that the game was still in Panthers’ hands, as long as they kept it close and valued each and every possession. “I knew I had to try to get to the line, and the only way to do that was to play aggressive by attacking the basket and handling the ball well with the pressure,” Ridner said.
Ridner admitted that in previous years, getting to the line was not the way she preferred to impact the game, but getting past the stress of shooting game-deciding free throws has helped her tremendously. “Free throws didn’t really use to be my thing, but this season I’ve had to step up and make them,” she said.
The Panther comeback extended past free throw making, as sophomore guard Lauren Conner pieced together an 18 point game on 7-15 shooting that helped the Panthers overcome their first-half woes. “The coaches have been encouraging me to look to score more, so that has kind of changed my mindset offensively,” Conner said.
The Panther coaching staff should be happy that they advocated for this change in Conner’s offensive game because the 10 second-quarter points she provided kept South within striking distance heading into the second half. “We just had to stick to our stuff, and I knew I would need to step up when the opportunity presented itself,” Conner said.
The Panthers will look to snatch their third straight win when they take on Franklin Community at home on Jan. 2 at 6 p.m.
