By Mike Buchanan
 

As if Baltimore Lutheran Head Coach Brent Johnson needed more excitement in an already hectic week. He and his wife Joy celebrated the birth of a daughter, Emma Christine, on Monday, enough excitement for anyone.

With little sleep in the past several days, and riding on pure adrenaline, Johnson really didn’t need another dose to test the nerves – but he got it anyway.

What he got was a buzzer-beating, game-winning shot. And the shot came from an unexpected source. No, it was a little too soon for baby Emma to step onto the hardwood and take the big shot. But someone else did.

With the score tied and just 15 seconds remaining in regulation, Johnson diagrammed a play that would get his go-to scorers a good look at the basket.

But the Beth Tfiloh defense took away those options, and with seconds ticking away toward overtime, the ball reversed to senior Janice Hejirika who calmly let one fly from just behind the left elbow, banking in at the buzzer to give Lutheran a 37-35 IAAM C-Conference win yesterday, in Towson.

When asked about the game-winner, Johnson said “First it was a post look for Catherine (Kennedy) or Meghan (Lepley), and if we didn’t get that, a ball screen for Rachel (Keshishian) to penetrate and hopefully get free throws. It didn’t work, but Janice stepped up and hit the shot. I give her all the credit.”

With the win, Lutheran remains unbeaten in conference play, improving to 7-0, and 10-4 overall. Second-place Beth Tfiloh could have inched closer to the Saints in the X Division, but the Warriors dropped to 5-3 in league and 7-6 overall.

Host Lutheran built a six-point lead at the opening half, taking a 24-18 advantage into intermission. Senior guard Meghan Lepley needed an even 20 points to reach the coveted 1,000-point mark for her career, and she got 11 of those in that first half. Rachel Schulder had a pair of baskets and a three-pointer to lead BT with seven at the break.

“We’ve been coming together as a team, and everybody played well,” said Johnson. “There was a little distraction with Meghan going for 1,000 points. But we talked about it before the game; if it happens, it happens; if it doesn’t, it’ll be another game. We were still able to focus and play hard, and we had to because Beth Tfiloh is very tough.”

The teams traded dominance in the third period. It was all Beth Tfiloh for awhile, as the Warriors went on a 10-0 run to erase the deficit and take the lead.

Junior guard Sara Hervitz hit two free throws to open the scoring and then got a steal of an errant pass and converted the lay-up to bring her team to within two. Then it got sloppy – on both ends – as Lutheran committed four straight turnovers (all on passes) and Beth Tfiloh also had four turnovers at the other end (all on travels).

Both teams settled down, and then Schulder canned two free throws to tie the game. Senior All-Conference guard Arielle Vogelstein then drove the gap of the Lutheran 2-3 zone for a lay-up, giving BT the lead. Two more Warrior free throws made it a 28-24 game.

A basket inside by sophomore forward Taylor Allen finally ended the dry spell for Lutheran at the 2:25 mark. The Saints had gone scoreless for five and a half minutes. Allen did it on the other end as well with a defensive trifecta; she blocked a Vogelstein shot, grabbed the rebound and sent a long outlet pass to Octavia Leach, who hit the lay-up to tie the game at 28-28.

Allen scored inside again as Lutheran regained the lead, but the Saints were not done. With seconds ticking off the clock, Lepley faked a drive and calmly stepped back behind the arc and drained a three-pointer at the buzzer to give BL a 33-28 lead.  It was all Beth Tfiloh for the first 5:30 with a 10-0 run, and then all Lutheran in the final 2:30 with an 11-0 run.

Hervitz, one of the best free throw shooters in any division of the IAAM, started the fourth quarter the same way she did the third, canning a pair from the line. BT scored again, and then Vogelstein rebounded her own miss and scored the put-back to give the Warriors another lead, 34-33.

Lepley also made two of two from the line, at 2:05, giving her 996 career points, but more importantly giving her team a 35-34 lead. A Lutheran foul put Schulder on the line with 1:01 on the clock, and the senior hit the first and missed the second, creating a 35-35 tie.

Lutheran failed to score on its next possession, and BT came up short as well, as Vogelstein missed on a drive. After getting the ball over mid-court, Johnson called time-out with 15 seconds left to set up the potential winning play.

The Warriors did the job defensively in denying both Lepley and Kennedy inside, and Keshishian outside, but that left Hejirika open on ball reversal, and the senior came up big with the game-winner.

League coaches obviously know that Lepley and Keshishian are the Lutheran go-to scorers. Both were All-Conference selections last year, with Lepley averaging 14.2 points per game and Keshishian 11.3. The pair would combine for 25 points in an average game, or sometimes upward of 30-35 if both had a hot hand. So it’s no surprise that BT Coach Sonya Howell tried to key on those two, and force someone else to shoot.

Hejirika did just that, and even tough she didn’t  “call bank” it still counts as two points – and a “W” in the win column.

“It’s nice to see one of my teammates, who doesn’t normally score a lot, get a chance to hit the big shot. Janice stepped up when we really needed it, after they played good “D” on the last play,” said Lepley of her fellow senior.

“I wasn’t expecting to shoot, but I knew time was running down and we might not have time for another pass, so I let it fly,” added Hejirika on her winning shot.

Two buzzer-beaters in the second half for the Saints, and they needed them both to post the win.

Hervitz scored 12 and Schulder 10 to lead Beth Tfiloh, with Vogelstein scoring nine. Howell’s squad continued its excellent shooting from the charity stripe, connecting on 14 of 19 (73.6%). In a 53-44 win over St. Timothy’s on Monday, the Warriors shot an almost identical 14 of 18 (77.7%), as Vogelstein (20 points), Hervitz (15) and Schulder (10) all scored in double figures.

Beth Tfiloh is right back on the court today, Thursday, making it back-to-back outings with an away game at Annapolis Area Christian, weather permitting.

Lutheran faces another stern challenge on Friday, as the Saints travel to Catholic, one of the toughest away venues in the league. Beth Tfiloh and Catholic hooked up in another down-to-the-wire thriller last month in Pikesville, as another last-second shot was instrumental in the outcome. In that contest, BT’s Judy Gersteinbith hit a last-second shot , but BT needed a three to tie, and her foot was just over the arc line, leaving the Warriors one point short. So expect another close game when Lutheran visits Catholic. Lepley will need four points in Friday’s game to hit the 1,000 mark.

The Saints then travel to New York on Saturday for a contest at Long Island Lutheran.

Baltimore Lutheran 37, Beth Tfiloh 35
BT – Hervitz 12, Schulder 10, Vogelstein 9, Safferman 4. Totals: 10 14-19 35. 
BL – Lepley 16, Hejirika 6, Allen 4, Leach 4, Hamilton 4, Kennedy 2, Keshishian 1. Totals: 16 3-8 37.
Half: BL, 24-18.