Bruised, Not Broken: Mason Wins Thriller

Girls Basketball

At tip-off Tuesday night for the George Mason High School girls basketball game against visiting Dominion, everyone present—players, coaches, fans, referees—began a journey on a two-and-a-half basketball rollercoaster that ultimately came to a halt with the Mustangs the ones smiling, winning 44-41 in overtime.

Lena Griffin hit a layup as time expired to send the game to overtime at 35 and Becky Roa and Julie Dorsey hit cluch free throws to seal the exciting win.

The game featured more ups and downs than one could pack in an entire season. There were no physical scraps, but plenty of words were exchanged after the game. There were disputed foul calls, rowdy fans, injuries, lots of tears and lots of cheers.

Early in the third quarter, one official commented on the side, “This one is gonna be wild.”

With the game tied and the Mustangs playing without three starters in the final minute—two fouled out and the third left with an injury—and seemingly no offensive weapons, the Mustangs scraped out a win on what seemed to be pure grit.

“It was a big pressure situation,” head coach Dan Wilkie said. “We had that ‘We’re not going down’ attitude and we didn’t go down.”

Roa and Dorsey hit free throws in the remaining seconds and Dominion’s Amanda Meins, who had killed the Mustangs by hitting seven consecutive free throws in the fourth quarter and overtime, missed for the first time since the first quarter and Mustangs’ players and supporters let out a sigh of relief with a victory.

Both teams came out flat in the first quarter and it wasn’t until the Mustangs went on a 9-0 run in the second that any offensive presence was felt. But that balloon quickly deflated for Mason in the third quarter.

For an abysmal seven minutes and 46 seconds, the Mustangs had 13 offensive possessions that produced no points, six turnovers and four fouls on their scoring end of the floor.

Graciously enough, the Titans didn’t take advantage and when sophomore team leader Maggie O’Toole ended the drought with her three-pointer with 14 seconds left in the period, it gave Mason a 24-23 lead.

The rollercoaster continued to rock in the fourth quarter. The game’s—possibly the season’s—lowest point came when O’Toole fell to the ground in anguish after diving for a loose ball. O’Toole had to be helped off the court and ultimately left for the hospital with what is most likely a broken ankle. It was her first game back after missing all of last week and she was leading all scorers with 12 points. Wilkie said the possibility of her returning this season is in doubt.

Only three minutes later, fortunes changed dramatically when junior Lena Griffin took a Julie Dorsey miss and layed it in as time wound down to tie the game at 35 and send it to overtime.

“We had the momentum,” Wilkie said about heading into overtime.

In overtime, the coaster promptly sunk back down when within seconds of each other, Griffin and Alison Pender fouled out. Tears were in the eyes of the heavy heads of the Mason bench before Roa took over, making a short jumper off a steal and hitting two of her four free-throw opportunities.

The volume of fans on both sides of The Pit increased as the game unfolded, everyone being treated to a quality contest.