The calendar turned to March on Wednesday and the Madness began at Hillsboro.
Brentwood roared back from an 18-point deficit to win the Region 6-4A championship with a 51-48 victory in overtime at Hillsboro.
“No. 1,” Brentwood coach Marcel Williams said when asked where this one ranks among the crazy games during his eight years with the Lady Bruins – two as a head coach and six as an assistant.
It was the second straight overtime win for Brentwood (25-6), which watched a 16-point lead vanish in Monday’s semifinal win over Columbia.
Brentwood hosts Green Hill (16-6) and Hillsboro (18-9) visits Cookeville (29-4) in Saturday’s 7 p.m. sectionals.
“Columbia, they pushed us to the brink on Monday,” Williams said. “We were tired, the legs were short and I understood that. I knew that was gonna happen.”
Most Valuable Player Ella Ryan led the way, scoring 27 points, including the only three in OT.
So what went through the sophomore guard’s mind when the Lady Bruins fell behind 33-15 midway through the third quarter?
“I was thinking this is where we can either fold or turn it around and I looked at my team and said, ‘If you want to win, then you’ve got to pick up your energy and head and keep going,’ ” Ryan said. “Going into the third quarter, I was trying to get people fired up.”
Her pep talk worked as Brentwood closed the third quarter with a 14-5 run, narrowing the deficit to 38-29.
The Lady Bruins kept pushing and Ryan nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing to tie the score at 48 with 47.3 seconds left in regulation.
Hillsboro missed two shots in the paint during the final seconds as the game went into OT tied at 48.
A 74% free throw shooter entering the game, Ryan hit two foul shots to give Brentwood a 50-48 lead with 2:07 left in OT.
She went one of two from the foul line with 10.8 seconds remaining, and Hillsboro missed two more shots in the paint shortly before the final buzzer sounded.
“Deep breath, block out all the sound,” said Ryan, describing her thoughts before the foul shots. “I’ve been put in that position before and I was like this is what I have to do to win. If I don’t make these, we will not win.”
Ryan tries to take about 180 free throws per day at practice and on her own with a shooting machine.
Hillsboro swept three previous games from Brentwood, winning 46-44 in January and 49-46 in February.
Then the Lady Burros beat the Lady Bruins 54-39 in the District 11-4A championship.
Brentwood finally avenged those defeats in the fourth meeting between the teams.
“This is the perfect example of bouncing back,” Ryan said. “We bounced back and said not again, not us, and we just were able to finish out the game with a win.”
Brentwood’s Charlotte Lambright, a 6-foot senior guard-forward, added eight points, but it was her contributions on the other end of the court that stood out.
“Charlotte is probably the best defensive player Brentwood has ever had,” Williams said. “We just leaned on our defense in overtime.”
Brentwood split two games with Green Hill during the regular season.
The Lady Bruins won their first region title since 2020, which was also the year of their last state tournament appearance. They extended their winning streak to six.
Latazia Williamson and Kamil Washum led the Lady Burros with 15 points apiece.
“It’s tough, but we’ll bounce back,” Williamson said. “I guess they came out with a better second half than us. They beat us in the transition a lot, so that put them back in the game and we were fouling and it was just crazy.”
Williamson, a 6-foot forward who has signed with Gardner-Webb, grabbed 11 rebounds, including 10 in the first half.
“The group that I have is pretty resilient and they’re competitors, and they understood that the moment was lost,” Hillsboro coach Cherish Stringfield said. “But at the end of the day we have something to learn from it, so yes, it (stinks) and they were bummed, but they’re also eager to get back to work.”
The loss ended the Lady Burros’ 13-game winning streak.
Hillsboro is one win from its first state tournament appearance since 2009.
“We’re still alive and we have another game in the next 48 hours to get ready for and all they can really do is grow from it,” Stringfield said. “Tonight we came up short. We had a pretty big lead and played well for the first three quarters.”
Then Brentwood caught fire and Hillsboro started turning the ball over.
“We didn’t capitalize on point-blank layups,” Stringfield said. “As a coach, the most important work that I’m going to do this season is tomorrow. The vibe of the locker room is, ‘Oh, we’re getting better tomorrow.'”
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