In need of rescue? Dial three

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007

On Thursday afternoon at Springbrook High, junior guard Melisa Corado-Williams came to the girls basketball team’s rescue. With 10 seconds left versus Northwest, and the game tied at 37-37, the emergency starter got a hurried pass directly in front of her team’s bench. By that point in the game, all of the momentum was against Springbrook, and all game long, outside shooting had been a mystery. In spite of that, she nailed her second three-pointer and the Blue Devils escaped a last-second scare to win, 40-39.

Corado-Williams’ game-winner was a Hail Mary shot.

‘‘It was crazy,” she said. ‘‘The whole game, I was off with my shot. I kept putting up threes, but they all missed. I just hoped that I could make this one. It was like, ‘Oh God, please let me make it.’ It was luck, I guess.”

With the tight victory over Northwest, Springbrook (6-1 record) really earned the trophy for its holiday tournament. On Wednesday, it beat Marriotts Ridge of Howard County, 56-31. Combining both games, senior guard Eryn Withers led the Blue Devils with 31 points. Junior forward Alyssa Montgomery had 16, and senior point guard Taryn Christian had 14. Corado-Williams did all of her scoring in Thursday’s thriller, finishing with 10 points (eight in the second half).

Together, Montgomery and Corado-Williams gave Springbrook plenty of punch off of the bench. Usually a reserve, Corado-Williams was inserted into the starting five because sophomore guard Tieyara Jones was out of town. Meanwhile, Montgomery replaced junior forward Wilize Maleombho and had the daunting task of battling Northwest standout forward Deven Green. Montgomery struggled to keep up with Green but still muscled her way to nine rebounds and six points.

‘‘Alyssa and Melisa did it for us,” Springbrook coach Oliver Riggs said. ‘‘When you’re missing a couple of key players, someone just steps up. We’ve been getting that kind of support. That’s why we’re 6-1. It’s not just Erin and Taryn.”

Corado-Williams surprised a lot of people with her clutch three. The Northwest defense was intent on shutting out Withers, coming out in a box-and-one defense. Meanwhile, the Springbrook offense had suffered a long dry spell. In a lengthy stretch that started in the third quarter and carried over the fourth, the Devils made just 1 of 19 attempts from the floor. At the beginning of the fourth, they had a 32-23 lead, but by the time there was just a minute remaining, the advantaged was completely whittled away and the game was tied.

Northwest (5-3 record) had already made one big comeback in the tournament. The day before, against Kennedy, Northwest overcame a 28-15 halftime deficit to win on a jumper by Green with five seconds left. In the championship game, they tried to do it again.

Suddenly and drastically, the Jaguars’ turned the tide. Two minutes into the fourth, they got six unanswered points. Springbrook hastily called time to regroup, but then out of the break, Northwest senior guard Kelly Stewart banked a 12-foot jumper off the glass. After the Blue Devils’ Ashley Moore hit a couple of free throws, Stewart buried a three and the Jags were within a bucket, 34-32.

‘‘We turned it on when we really had to,” Northwest coach Marc Waldman said. ‘‘We lost some of that intensity when things didn’t go our way, but I told my girls right before the fourth, I said that we just needed to come out with the same fire that we had at the very beginning of the third.”

Northwest kept the momentum and gradually closed in on Springbrook. With just over a minute left, Christian found the net and put Springbrook ahead by three; however, on the Devils’ next possession, junior forward Nikki Day deflected a pass and Green snagged the loose ball. In transition, Green fed Day, who swished a three from the right wing to knot the game at 37-37. The visiting fans erupted, and Springbrook immediately called for time with 52 seconds on the clock.

Going into the pause, surrounded by elated teammates, Day just casually shrugged her shoulders. ‘‘What I love about Nikki is that she’s a cool, even-tempered kid,” Waldman said. ‘‘To her it was just like, ‘Eh, that’s what I’m supposed to do.’”

After Corado-Williams put the Devils on top for good, 40-37, Northwest made one final stab. With five ticks left, Day put up one more attempt from beyond the arc. A collective gasp was audible through the gym, but the ball caromed off of the back iron. Green grabbed the rebound, and just before the buzzer, she converted a putback for the final margin.

Waldman said that his young Northwest squad (mostly sophomores and juniors; just three seniors) matured in the tournament.

‘‘For us to come back [in the fourth] and play as close as we did, that just tells us a lot,” he said. ‘‘We’d love to step up to the next level now. To me, yeah, we’re disappointed that we lost, but it’s a step forward.”

As for Springbrook, Riggs was satisfied to get a victory but he might just ask the players to win in a much easier fashion.

‘‘That’s a good game for the fans, for the girls, but not for an old coach like me,” he said.

Notes: Nikki Day led Northwest with her 14 points, Deven Green had 12.