No. 4 Hammond rallied from 10 points down with less than five minutes left to beat No. 2 St. Frances, 56-51, in a wild game in which three players were ejected last night at the ninth annual Holly and Hoops Tournament at Essex Community College.
Monica White hit a follow shot with 21 seconds left to give the Golden Bears the lead for good. Six-foot center Rene Hines, who scored all 12 of her points in the fourth quarter, added a buzzer-beating 20-footer from the corner for the final margin.
Late in the second quarter, both teams lost their top players, Hammond's Tiki Nicholson and St. Frances' Melba Chambers, after a verbal fight. St. Frances' Nillon Lambert also was ejected.
When everybody finished shooting free throws on the technical fouls -- one against Hammond and three on the Panthers -- Hammond led 26-17.
The Bears (4-2) held onto the lead until late in the third quarter when the Panthers (7-2) tied it at 32 and rallied to 41-35 on the last nine points of the quarter.
With 2:36 to go, the Panthers were still ahead -- by eight. But when the Bears started to press, they held the Panthers to one shot the rest of the way.
"We started to press and pick up the tempo a little bit, and I think they got a little tired," said Hammond coach Joe Russo. "I think we really out-hustled them in the last four minutes."
The Bears hit six of their last eight shots from the floor.
At the same time, the Panthers could not convert their free throws when the Bears put them on the line for three one-and-ones.
Harrison, who led Hammond with 17 points, and Hines, who scored nine in the final two minutes, combined for all but four of the Bears' 21 fourth-quarter points. Harrison fed Hines for a layup to tie at 49 and then fed Kellye Townsend (15 points) for a 51-49 lead.
Hammond advances to play No. 8 Severna Park, a 61-58 overtime winner over St. John's, Prospect Hall, in the Holly Division championship tonight at 8 o'clock. In the Hoops Division, No. 14 Mount Hebron plays C. Milton Wright in the consolation game at 2 this afternoon.
Yesterday, the Vikings lost point guard Alisha Mosley to an ankle injury and fell to No. 20 Loch Raven, 47-37.
Mosley, averaging 19 points, started against the Raiders (4-1) despite spraining her ankle in Monday's practice. She went up for a shot late in the first quarter and came down in pain. She never returned to the court.
"[Losing Mosley] just slows our whole game down," said Vikings coach Pat Becker, whose team likes to run. "We just got moving the ball slowly and stood around a lot offensively."
Still the Vikings (4-3) managed to run up a 25-18 halftime lead with a 12-3 blitz midway through the second quarter. The Vikings out-rebounded Loch Raven 15-5 in the quarter and shot 7-17 from the field.
But all that changed in the second half. The Vikings hit four of 29 shots in the second half and missed all eight from three-point range.
"A lot of our shots weren't falling," said Kathy Doyle, who led the Vikings with 14 points, nine rebounds, three assists and three steals, "and we weren't getting all the rebounds that we were in the first half. First half, we were dominating on the boards, but second half, they were just out-rebounding us."
In a 14-2 Loch Raven run that lasted most of the third quarter, the Raiders out-rebounded the Vikings 9-4 and shot 7-for-13.
Robyn Harry's 12-footer with 3:10 left in the quarter gave the Raiders a 30-29 lead. The Vikings never led again although Doyle's driving layup tied it at 34 early in the fourth quarter.
After that, the Vikings missed 13 straight shots as the Raiders ran up a 47-35 lead. Doyle fed Jenny Joyce for a buzzer-beating layup that was the Vikings' second basket of the quarter.
Sara Eberhart had eight points, five steals and two assists for the Vikings, and Erin McGinnis added eight points and 11 rebounds.