Lady Trojans withstand Sterling's late surge
When the Lady Trojans look back on the season for their better games, it's not likely Friday's meeting in Hillsboro with the Sterling Lady Warriors will be the first to come to mind.
Even with a slow start, Hillsboro (13-3, 7-1 MCAA) was able to stay one game up on the Hesston Lady Swathers in the heated race for the MCAA's top spot, fighting off the charging Black Bears, 45-38.
With two weeks left in the regular season, the Trojans wrap up their home stretch Friday when they host the Halstead Lady Dragons in about a 6 p.m. tip-off.
A slow start is better than never getting started at all, and there's been few games that have gotten off any worse than what the Trojans went through Friday.
Barely 3:00 into the game, Hillsboro had yet to get anything going offensively, trailing 4-0, and missing six of its first eight shots.
Amy Neufeld scored 13 points with 11 coming the first half.
Her basket with about 1:35 left in the first quarter gave Hillsboro its first lead — 6-4, as the Black Bears went nearly the last 7:00 of the opening quarter without a basket.
Sterling was hardly ready to throw in the towel, though, despite facing its largest incline of 14 points with just over 1:30 still left in the first half.
The Black Bears diced the deficit to 24-15 by halftime, scoring five unanswered points while shooting 33 percent from the field the first half — 35 percent overall, but 43 from outside.
JuliAnne Chisholm scored a game-high 17 points, including 11 in the first half, too, getting help from Neufeld to carry the Trojans on their backs.
The Bears' Holly Anthony made it an intense fourth quarter for the Trojans, dropping a team-high 14 points to go along with 11 rebounds for a double-double.
Anthony scored six consecutive points to help pull Sterling to within 36-34 with just over 5:00 left in the game.
The Bears overtook the lead, 38-36, with 3:15 to go, but Sterling couldn't score again as the Trojans closed the game on a 7-0 run to nail it shut.
