SPARTANBURG – The Blythewood girls basketball team dug themselves a hole against Spartanburg by the midway point of the third quarter Tuesday night.
By game’s end, the Bengals nearly climbed out. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t get a couple of late shots to fall, and the Vikings escaped with a 52-50 victory in the first round of the 5A playoffs.
Spartanburg moves on to face J.L. Mann in the second round. The Patriots defeated Clover 61-58 Tuesday.
Blythewood, which finished second in Region 3-5A, finishes the season at 13-9. The loss was especially frustrating, noting that the Bengals finished the night having forced 32 turnovers, but suffered with 16-for-53, or 32.2 percent shooting.
“We should never have been in that situation, that’s what I told them,” Bengals head coach Emily McElveen said. “We didn’t shoot well tonight. We couldn’t buy a basket if we wanted one.”
Spartanburg (11-15) didn’t take as many shots, but the Vikings made them count when they did, going 22-for-34, or 64.7 percent.
Having Genesis Young-flucker under the nets worked wonders for that accuracy. Young-flucker pretty much camped beneath the goal, put up 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for the Vikings. She was also instrumental in limiting Blythewood possessions to one shot.
“When our shots aren’t falling, we’ve got to find other ways to score,” McElveen said. “We can’t totally rely on that. We’ve got to have a post presence.”
After Blythewood closed out the first quarter with a 13-10 lead, the Bengals eventually worked up to a 19-14 lead at the 6:11 mark of the second quarter.
Shortly after that point, the momentum shifted in favor of Spartanburg, and the Bengals began digging. With Young-flucker grabbing defensive rebounds and scoring putbacks along with other Spartanburg scorers, the Vikings finished the first half on an 11-4 run.
Spartanburg led 25-23 at halftime and Blythewood kept on digging its hole through most of the third quarter. The Vikings opened the second half with a 13-2 scoring run by the 1:57 mark of the third.
By that point Blythewood began to climb out, thanks to Chase Thomas’s back-to-back 3-pointers to close out the third quarter and get the Bengals to within 40-32.
Blythewood tried to cut into that 8-point margin but Spartanburg still held a 50-42 lead with about four minutes to go.
In a quick turn of events, Hayley Hightower drew a foul on her basket and got Blythewood to within 50-45. Kalia Spain sank a foul shot and Hightower got another basket with 45 seconds left to make it 50-48.
At the 30-second mark, Thomas got a steal and made a layup attempt that missed—but she drew a foul. Her two shots missed, but she made up for it seconds later by driving in and delivering a short-range jumper that tied the game at 50 with 15 seconds left.
That was as close as the Bengals could get to emerging from their deficit. With 10.6 seconds left Spartanburg’s Tamajha Miller inbounded the ball to Kaylee Nelson, who launched it down the court to Young-flucker under the net, and she did what she had done eight times before—put the ball in the net with 4.6 seconds left.
Blythewood could only inbound to Williams, who fired a shot at midcourt that bounced off the backboard and to the floor as the buzzer sounded.
“I told them that it hurts and it’s going to hurt,” McElveen said. “I hurt, they hurt, all of us hurts. If you care about it, you’re going to feel this way. But you’ve got to learn from it and we’ve got to move on.”
Thomas finished the night with 17 points to lead the Bengals. Hightower had 11 points.
Thomas and Hightower, both sophomores, will return along with Williams, also a sophomore.
Aniya Fluker and Madison Brown depart as seniors.
“We’re young, we’ve got some girls coming back,” McElveen said. “I hate that my seniors had to go out like that. But the main message is we’re young, remember the way we feel now so that we don’t feel this way again.”
Spartanburg – 10-15-15-12 — 52
Blythewood – 13-10-9-18 — 50
Spartanburg: Genesis Young-Flucker 20, Miller 8, Nelson 7, Ferguson 5, Sainvil 4, Bridges 4, Sherrod 4.
Blythewood: Chase Thomas 17, Hayley Hightower 12, India Williams 11, Spain 5, Fluker 2, Brown 2, Thomas 1.