Freshman Mackenzie Emery scored a game-high 19 points to lead fifth-seeded Bonny Eagle to a 41-37 overtime win over fourth-ranked Thornton Academy in a Class AA South girls’ basketball quarterfinal Wednesday night at the Portland Expo.
The Scots will meet top-ranked Gorham (18-0) in the semifinals at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cross Insurance Arena.
Emery, who sank four free throws in overtime, put the Scots ahead to stay when she drove the lane to make it 39-37 with 55 seconds left.
“She hasn’t played like a freshman all year long,” Bonny Eagle Coach Scott Regan said. “It takes a lot of guts to step up and want the ball at the end of the game.”
The Scots (9-10) had to chase the Trojans (10-9), the defending regional champions, for much of the game.
Cassidy Emery, Mackenzie’s older sister, sent the game into overtime when she drained a 3-pointer from the left side with 20.4 seconds left in the fourth quarter to make it 34-34.
Thornton Academy, which opened the season Dec. 4 with a 35-31 win over the Scots on Standish, led by as many as eight points in the first half.
“We knew (Thornton) usually starts out pretty strong and we just had to survive that,” Regan said. “A lot of our kids never played here in the Expo, even in the regular season, so we had to get that taken care of, work those bugs out. We had to make sure we kept it close early.”
Bonny Eagle didn’t score its first points until Megan McIntosh put in a long shot from the left side to make it 7-2 with 30 seconds left in the first quarter.
The Trojans opened a 13-5 lead less than four minutes into the second quarter before Bonny Eagle rallied.
Mackenzie Emery sank 5 of 6
free throws plus a 3-pointer from the right corner during a two-minute span to close the gap to 14-13.
Ashley Howe hit a 3-pointer from the right side with two seconds left in the half to give the Trojans a 17-13 lead. Howe, who led Thornton with 12 points, sank another 3-pointer near the end of the third quarter to propel the Trojans into a 28-24 lead.
“One of our objectives going into every game is to try to get the last shot of every quarter, and the girls did a nice job of executing it,” Thornton Coach Eric Marston said.
The Trojans shot only 32.4 percent from the floor.
“We didn’t shoot it very well,” Marston said. “We were a little tentative. We were getting some good shots. We just weren’t finishing.”
The Scots held a 23-16 edge in rebounding.
“Everybody is bigger than we are and that’s what makes it tough,” Regan said. “We have to focus on boxing out and getting those rebounds.”
“I give Bonny Eagle a lot of credit,” Marston said. “They played hard.”
Poor foul shooting plagued the Scots, especially in the second half. They finished 14 of 28.
“Down the stretch we did everything we could to let it slip away,” Regan said, “but our kids kept fighting and kept fighting, and we finished at the line the way we needed to when we needed to.”
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