Uncharacteristically clanking three of four crunch-time free throws during Tuesday night's Intermountain League District Tournament play-in game, Tymbree Florian still managed to come up big - in a different way - when it mattered most.
Fouled almost immediately after catching an inbounds pass near midcourt with 3.7 seconds remaining, Bayfield's junior guard sank one of her final two charity tosses, then proceeded to steal the ball after Montezuma-Cortez rebounded her last attempt. She then tried dribbling towards midcourt in hopes of heaving up a buzzer-beating prayer.
"We all knew coming into it that this was going to be the first playoff, Bayfield's made it to in years, and I think that's what pushed us so hard," Florian said, after a 47-44 victory. "And everyone showed up, the whole game, everyone was aggressive, everyone put their heart into this."
"It was definitely a lot closer than we'd hoped, but that's why the players play, that's why you have the game," said head coach Josh Kitchen. "We have a lot of girls that we trust, and they make plays - like Tymbree did tonight. We had girls doing that all game long, stepping up and making a big play here or there, and that's what playoff basketball is all about!"
Bayfield trailed the Panthers 14-10 after one quarter, via sophomore reserve Mackenzie Begay's last-second three-pointer. BHS (7-13 overall) fought back to surge ahead and build a 27-18 lead before M-CHS junior Mandy McAfee drained another trey with fewer than 10 seconds left before halftime of the home game.
"We were trying to attack, getting them in foul trouble, and that was kind of the game plan," Kitchen said. "We wanted to go at them as much as we could, and wanted to control the tempo, and I thought we did that really well in the first half."
In which neither of the guests' starting posts scored a single point. But that would change.
Sophomore Presley Frost drilled a three early in the third quarter and junior Ayanna Silas, also a bench player, cashed yet another late in the third to send the game into its final quarter tied 34-34.
"It kind of blindsided us a little bit, coming from those players we didn't expect," admitted Florian. "That's all (Kitchen) was telling us, to stop the threes, and when we finally started listening to him it worked! We shut them down."
But, as indicated, not the M-CHS posts.
Consecutive baskets by junior forward Kailey Case put the Panthers up 38-34 early in the fourth quarter. Sophomore guard Dimery Plewe, who would later foul out stopping Florian, dropped in a running 15-footer shortly after to maintain a four-point lead at 40-36.
Wolverine freshman center Macee Schultz managed to briefly regain a 41-40 advantage with a hoop inside and 2:47 left, but back-to-back Frost jumpers had Montezuma-Cortez (4-16 overall) up three with fewer than two minutes remaining.
But Florian buried a tying three-pointer off the left wing with 1:17 left. Junior Jordan Lanning put BHS ahead, 46-44, with 13 seconds left, taking a pass from freshman Kira Riley and running it in for the go-ahead layup.
"We knew it was going to be tight," a relieved Kitchen said. "This is playoff basketball and it doesn't matter who you're playing, especially with a well-coached team like Cortez. It doesn't come down to anything that happened previously; you can plan and plan and plan, but at a certain point you've got to let the girls play and obviously the girls did a great job."
Just 3-of-7 from the foul line, Lanning still managed a game-high 11 points, and Schultz was right behind with 10. Florian and Riley each finished with eight, and senior Cinnamon Varnell, whose four FTs in as many tries erased M-CHS' first-quarter lead with 7:10 left in the second, matched classmate Tiarra Christensen's four.
Plewe and Silas booked eight points apiece for the Panthers, while Case and Frost each scored her seven after halftime.
Bayfield will face Centauri in the IML District Tournament semifinal. Tipoff time at Alamosa High School is set for 6 p.m. Friday, with the vaunted Falcons checking in at 18-1 overall and having matched Pagosa Springs' 9-1 regular-season league record.
PSHS (16-3) will battle AHS (13-7) at about 7:30 p.m. The winners meet at 6 p.m. Saturday night and the losers squaring off at 3 p.m. for third place.
BOYS' UPDATE: Having ended the regular season 12-7 overall, 7-3 in league, the Bayfield boys return to Alamosa Thursday to begin IML District Tournament play versus Monte Vista (7-13, 1-9).
The winners (Alamosa hosts Cortez in the later semifinal) will move on to contest the championship at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The losers decide third place at 4:30.
