Glenelg won a late free-throw shooting contest last night to preserve a 56-52 upset of No. 12 Mount Hebron, its first victory over the Vikings in six years.
Kim Brown scored the game-winner on the front end of a one-and-one with 46 seconds left. She added the second for a 54-50 Gladiators lead.
The Vikings cut it to two when Alisha Mosley found Erin McGinnis open inside with 20 seconds to go, but Hebron could not get another quick foul. The Gladiators worked the clock down to 13 seconds, took a timeout and then ran it down to four before McGinnis fouled Carrie Brown.
It didn't matter anyway since Carrie Brown hit both free throws to seal the win.
"This win is huge for us," said Glenelg coach Randy Wallenhorst. "No. 1, we haven't beaten Hebron since 1989 and that's big for the school. No. 2, we needed it because we had lost three in a row. With this team, you never know who's going to show up, but when they want to show up, we can play and we can play with anybody."
The Gladiators (11-7 overall, 4-6 league) played tight man-to-man defense and attacked the Vikings inside often.
"That was part of our plan to go inside," said Glenelg's Kim Brown, "because they're basically a guard team just like us. But we have a little more height and we felt our forwards were stronger than theirs."
While guards Jill Younce (16 points) and Kim Brown (10) did their usual share of the scoring, forward Gracia Walker had a season-high 11 points and forward Carrie Brown added 14.
That offensive strategy sparked the biggest run of the game, a 13-3 third-quarter spurt. Before that, neither team had led by more than five.
Walker started it with two strong moves to the basket, picking up fouls on both. She hit the first three free throws. Younce grabbed the miss and scored for a 31-27 Gladiators edge with 4:36 to go in the quarter.
Carrie Brown polished off the run with a layup that gave Glenelg a 39-30 lead with 1:15 left in the quarter. But after that, the Vikings (12-6, 7-3) started chipping away at the lead whittling it down to two on two Mosley free throws with 2:06 remaining.
Mosley, who finished with 21 points, answered Younce's baseline jumper with two more free throws to stay within 52-50 with 1:44 to go.
But Kathy Doyle, struggling with foul trouble and a twisted ankle, missed four free throws over the next 50 seconds before Kim Brown made the game-winner.
The Gladiators scored 11 of 17 fourth-quarter points at the free-throw line. They missed only three freebies in the quarter and were 17-for-27 in the game.
Mount Hebron, which matched Glenelg's 19 field goals, missed seven fourth-quarter free throws and finished 10-20 from the line.
"We had our chances to win, but we didn't step up and use them," said Vikings coach Pat Becker, whose team had won its last two games by one point each over No. 16 Howard and No. 20 Centennial. "[Glenelg] played real hard and they wanted to win a lot more than we did."