Kate Burhyte plays the role of Ray Allen for Episcopal late in Monday night’s 49-47 victory over Mandarin. Most people when they think of Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals, they remember the late game heroics of Allen that led his team to overtime and the eventual championship. Burhyte hit two deadly three’s that gave Niya Williams a chance for a game winning layup.
Mandarin came out of the gate showing why they were undefeated so early in the season, scoring four straight points. Mandarin came out ready to run hitting Episcopal early with a press. Episcopal Head Coach Stacey Rutenburg called a quick timeout and corralled the young ladies on how to break it. Episcopal young players started to take their time to break the press and were able to break it with ease after this point and had 13 unanswered points on the Mandarin Lady Mustangs. Sophomore guard Samantha Freeland broke her teams scoring drought at the three minute mark of the first quarter. Episcopal finished the first quarter up by eight against Mandarin and all five starters had scored at least one basket.
The start of the second quarter, Mandarin switched up their defense going from a full court press to a half-court matchup, thinking that this would stop the Lady Eagles from getting the easy layups they got in the first quarter. Episcopal ran their half-court offense and was able to get some open looks for sharpshooters Kate Burhyte and Niya Williams. Episcopal opened up the lead to as many as twelve points. Mandarin when they did get the ball down to their offensive end turned over the ball and those turnovers proved costly resulting in fast break layups for the Lady Eagles.
Mandarin Head Coach Anthony Flynn made adjustments prior to the start of the 2nd half for his team and they seemed to appear to work early on in the second half. Episcopal appeared to come out content with their lead and Mandarin powered through to a comeback closing the gap to two points with 3 minutes remaining in the third quarter.
Rutenburg called a timeout and called out her team, “these girls are undefeated for a reason”. The third quarter ended with Episcopal holding on to a three point lead. Mandarin’s Ellie Jackson and Freeland had a huge quarter for the Lady Mustangs scoring 10 of the teams 16 points for the quarter. At the start of the fourth quarter Mandarin kept up their defensive intensity that brought them back in the game.
The Lady Mustangs tied the game at 4:30 off of a great rebound and put back by senior captain Tyrille Cox. Freeland gave Mandarin the lead for the first time since early on in the first quarter on a contested three pointer from the corner. Episcopal had no timeouts so their only way to stop the clock was to foul and put the Lady Mustangs on the line hoping they would miss.
Mandarin went up six on Episcopal setting the stage for Burhyte, she hit her first three on an out of bounds play in the corner and then the other free throw line extended off of a screen tying the game up at 47. On the next play Williams beat the Mandarin defender to the basket putting the Lady Eagles back up 2. Mandarin still had time left on the clock after a botched throw in and a wide open layup but missed.
Mandarin was led in scoring by Jackson with 18 points, followed closely behind by Freeland with 15. Episcopal was led by Burhyte with 18, followed behind by Williams with 13 and Makenzie Flakus and Taylor Wells with 7.
Mandarin (3-1) will travel to Baker County (1-1) to face the Lady Wildcats on December 3rd. Episcopal (3-1) will have another home game against the Trinity Lady Conquerors (0-4) on December 5th.
