Sierra Vista girls overcome slow start, win in OT

Sierra Vista girls basketball coach Lindsay Whalen didn’t enjoy watching a “horrendous” first half in which her team mustered nine points.

Free-throw shooting, however, helped the Mountain Lions to one of their biggest wins of the season Wednesday.

Sierra Vista sank 21 of 32 foul shots, compared to Durango’s 2-for-15, on the way to a 49-41 overtime win over the visiting Trailblazers.

Sierra Vista (20-7, 13-2) clinched the Southwest League’s No. 2 seed for the Sunset Region playoffs and will host a postseason game for the first time in program history.

“We had talked about that quite a bit, how we wanted to better our free-throw percentage,” Whalen said. “That’s big for us; we’ve been kind of up and down.”

Jeanette Jackson scored seven of Sierra Vista’s 12 points in the extra period, including a 5-for-6 mark from the foul line. The Mountain Lions sank 8 of 10 free throws in overtime.

“It made a big difference in the game,” Jackson said of free-throw shooting. “In the first half, we couldn’t buy a shot, but in the second half, we came out and did what we had to do.”

Jackson led Sierra Vista with 26 points and five steals. She scored 21 points after halftime.

Durango jumped to a 10-2 first-quarter lead and didn’t trail until the fourth.

Sierra Vista closed regulation on a 13-7 run, forcing overtime on Nicolette Grigsby’s free throw with 11.9 seconds left.

 

Durango took a brief one-point lead in overtime, but Sierra Vista clinched the victory with a 10-1 run to end the game.

Jasmine Thomas led Durango (17-12, 11-5) with 12 points and eight rebounds. Tiarra Belville supplied 11 points, eight rebounds and three steals.

“We were hoping not to go to overtime, but it’s good to win close ones, especially with the first half we had and how poorly we played,” Whalen said. “To come back and finish with a win is good.”