By Ryan Minkrmink@digitalsports.comPaint Branch senior
Tarik Hislop had a sneaking suspicion that the Panthers were going to end up playing at Urbana in the 3A girls basketball region finals.
And after a coin flip confirmed her feelings, Hilsop and the Panthers were bound for a gym the Panthers had never won in, a gym filled with undefeated Hawks players and supporters hungry to dethrone the reigning 3A state champions.
And Hislop was excited. “It feels a lot better when you beat somebody in their house,” Hislop said.
Hislop felt pretty good then after scoring 27 points to lead Paint Branch to a 58-55 win over Urbana Saturday. The Gatorade Player of the Year scored 17 points in the second half and eight in the fourth quarter, including a pair of free throws at the end to put the game out of reach.
Paint Branch (23-2) will now face Western (Balt.) Thursday at University of Maryland Baltimore County at 9 p.m. in the state semifinals.
“I was hot; I was in the zone,” Hislop said.”They kept giving me the ball and I kept making my shots. So it worked out.”
Paint Branch is now past perhaps its toughest opponent on the way to the 3A title game. Urbana, who beat the Panthers in the 2007 region final, was unbeaten in 24 games this season.
The Hawks gave Paint Branch all it could handle. There were four ties in the fourth quarter and Paint Branch got its first lead since early in the second quarter with three minutes, 39 seconds left in the game. The Panthers even had to survive a last second heavy that bounced off the backboard before they could exhale.
“Wow, that was a great game,”
Paint Branch Coach Heather Podosek said. “I can’t even tell you how excited I am with the heart and character of this team. They had everything going against them tonight.”
Paint Branch (23-2) came out somewhat slow, wasn’t shooting well, wasn’t moving well, wasn’t rebounding well and wasn’t playing much defense, Podosek said.
Thus, the Hawks built a nine-point lead midway through the third quarter, largely on the back of sophomore center
Kristen Juenger (team-high 17 points) and senior guard
Ashleigh Fossett (10 points).
That's when Hislop rallied the Panthers. She buried a three-pointer to cut the lead to six, then after
Chandel Brown hit a free throw, Hislop converted an and-one and hit another three to cut Urbana’s lead to one.
“She doesn’t lose, she won’t lose,” Podosek said. “She hates to lose.”
“When you have a player like Tarik who’s special, she does special things and that’s what she did,” Hawks Coach Chris Krivos added.
Paint Branch senior forward
Khalilah Quigley was also huge in the win for the Panthers. She scored 18 points, including four in each the third and fourth quarters as the two teams went back and forth.
“Everything was a dogfight,” Quigley said. “Everything was hard. So it was our toughest game.”