Close call, Fulton upset of Lady Eagles falls short

The Lady Falcons mounted a late 16-3 charge in an upset bid against top seed Seymour, but fell short in the final minute as the Lady Eagles tightened up and hit their foul shots to win 55-45. Fulton used a physical defense to hold Brooke Johnson to just three buckets, but she burned them from the charity stripe with a 12 of 13 night to finish with 18 after sitting most of the third with foul trouble. Seymour opened strong, racing out to an 11-5 lead in the opening quarter. The Lady Falcons refused to go away. Jessi Peterson scored two buckets around a Brittnay Mikels bucket in the paint as SHS opened a 17-7 lead midway through the second. Fulton chipped away. The Lady Eagles didn’t score from the field against the banging defense the last 4:40 of the half. Instead SHS made a parade to the foul line. Mikels went one of three, while Peterson, Gina Ownby and Johnson got perfect swishes in six tries. The misses hurt, as Fulton cut the lead to five for a half time score of 24-19. Johnson was fouled going to the hoop in the first ticks of the third quarter. She sank both tosses at the line, but got whistled for her third personal nine seconds later. The block of Eleanor McDonough’s shot looked clean and the whistle drew the disapproval of the Seymour fans. Johnson sat much of the third, but the Lady Eagles plugged along. Heather Wright hit a big three to make it 31-23. Ashley Murphy took the brunt of hard defense by the Fulton guards in the quarter’s final minutes and hit three of four in two bonus trips to charity land. To the surprise of Fulton fans, SHS had actually upped the lead slightly with Johnson sitting. The Lady Eagles had the starting five on the court for the fourth and made a strong move to take control of the contest. Johnson converted a three-point play off a foul by Tanisha O’Neil to open the quarter. The Seymour post also picked up her fourth personal in the first minute of the quarter. The physical play and quick passes into the interior had Johnson shooting four more foul shots for four more twine ticklers. The foul count was taking its toll on both teams however. Johnson and Wright were both playing with four and Fulton’s O’Neil fouled out with 6:32 left. SHS used the uncontested shots to rebuild their lead. They pushed it even further when back-to-back long passes to a streaking Chelsea Harrell resulted in easy lay-ups for the Seymour guard. Wright ran a sweet give and go layup play off of Johnson at the top of the key and pushed the margin to 47-29 with four minutes left. Fulton then stiffened up and went full out in full court defense to force several back court turnovers and begin their rally. Three quick steals off the press turned into two short shots and a three pointer for Fulton that sliced the lead in half to 47-39 with 2:49 remaining and forced Coach Moore to call time to settle the troops. The situation got tenser still when McDonough hit her second trey of the quarter and seconds later Wright went to the bench with her fifth. Brandy Pressley hit the first of those foul shots as Fulton continued to close. Things continued to go wrong for SHS. Peterson sent Fulton back to the foul line while trying for an offensive rebound then Mikels went to the bench picking up her fifth. Fulton wasn’t doing well at the line, hitting just fifty percent of their tosses, which prevented them from getting over the hump after a defensively-led 16-2 rally. The lead was down to 49-45 with only 83 seconds left, but as SHS successfully stalled the ball with some inspired dribbling from Harrell, the Lady Falcons were forced to foul and the game got ugly. Murphy took a push foul in back court that sent her careening to the floor and against the bleachers; she picked herself up and wobbly hit both foul shots at the 51 second mark. Johnson rebounded Fulton’s missed three and was brought down to the floor with three Lady Falcons on top of her and one she was pushed over underneath her legs. The All-State post was slow getting up and missed her only foul shot of the night before canning the second try. Harrell in contrast got away light with just a push and slap at the ball. Her free throw provided the final margin of ten. Wright, Murphy and Harrell hit for seven apiece as the gaurds accounted for 21 of the SHS points. Peterson hit for eight in the paint and Mikels was good for six. Seymour hit 13 of their 17 foul shots in the physical fourth and 26 of 35 for the contest. The Lady Eagles advanced to play Alcoa, a two-point winner over Austin-East in the late game, in the finals on Thursday. Fulton plays in the consolation game against A-E as the teams will settle the third and fourth place region seeds for next week’s tournament at Kingston.