WESTPHALIA - The Blair Oaks Lady Falcons pulled out a 50-46 win Tuesday night against Fatima with a thrilling fourth quarter.
The win pushes the Lady Falcons record to 6-4 on the season and is their second straight win against their rival after defeating the Lady Comets in the district title game last season.
Blair Oaks held a 24-22 lead heading into halftime, but it was a big third quarter from senior guard Mallorie Fick that really got the Lady Falcons off and running in this one. Fick collected eight of her team-high 12 points for the game in the third quarter and helped the Falcons take a 39-31 advantage into the final quarter.
Fick’s big quarter forced Fatima coach Matt Baker to make big adjustments for the final quarter. The Lady Comets denied Fick the ball and made the other Blair Oaks players be the ones that beat them. This was effective and held the Falcons off the board in the fourth for the first 6:04.
“Fatima did a great job of slowing us down offensively there in the fourth,” Blair Oaks coach Brandon Moore said. “They face guarded Mallorie there in the fourth quarter and it makes it really hard to score when the other team is keying in on some of your best players.”
This adjustment allowed Fatima to fight all the way back and take a 41-39 lead with 3:30 left in the game. The Lady Comets were led by sophomore forward Alli Robertson who finished the game with 17 points and eight rebounds, including 10 second-half points.
“Fick hit a deep 3 in the third quarter and you could see her whole mentality changed,” Baker said. “We had to take a gamble and start face guarding Fick and Wolken down the stretch, but it allowed us to go on a 10-0 run to take the lead at one point. I would say the gamble paid off.”
This set the stage for a wild finish down the stretch. Blair Oaks went back to the recipe that helped build its lead, running the offense through the middle of the Fatima zone defense.
“Once we figured out that we have to go to the middle of the floor, that was the key for us,” Moore said. “Grace Boessen did a phenomenal job in the middle. We found continuity in the offense when the ball found the middle of the zone. We didn’t score with ease, but getting the ball in the middle definitely made things easier for us.”
Although Fatima had the size advantage, Blair Oaks won the rebounding battle 29-17. Even more impressive, the Lady Falcons did this without sophomore forward Autumn Bax, who left the game in the third quarter after a scary fall led to her hitting her head hard on the floor. Bax did not return to the game. The Lady Falcons stuck to their guns and played the style of basketball they are comfortable playing.
“We just talked about playing free and trusting our instincts,” Moore said. “We like to play the four-out and one-in style and our guards were confident in their rebounding ability, so we did not really worry about the size of Fatima and it paid off for us.”
Blair Oaks will ride this momentum into the Jefferson Bank Holiday Hoops Tournament starting Monday.
The Falcons will open the tournament against Blue Springs South at 4 p.m.
“We don’t know a lot about them at this point,” Moore said. “We played them a couple years ago, but there is not a lot of history other than that. We know they are a big school that’s going to come in here ready to compete.”
Fatima will look to rebound as it heads to the Rolla Holiday Tournament starting next Tuesday against Hazelwood West at 4 p.m.
“We are going to try and go in there and win a couple games,” Baker said. “We open up against a really good school Hazelwood West and the road won’t get any easier after that. We are going to keep working Morgan Luebbering back into the gameplan after she missed time with a knee injury and hopefully we can get rolling.”