Everything seemed to be trending in the right direction for the Three Rivers College women's basketball team heading into Saturday's Top-20 clash against host Moberly Area CC in a winner-take-all defacto Region XVI title tilt.
No. 19 Three Rivers had recorded a solid string of wins over the past few weeks since losing to Moberly at home three weeks earlier, while the No. 15 Greyhounds came into the game following a shock loss to Mineral Area College.
After a back-and-forth 45 minutes, including an overtime session, it was Moberly that escaped with a 91-85 win, the Region XVI regular season title, and a No. 1 seed in the region tournament which begins next week.
"I thought we gave ourselves a chance," TRC head coach Alex Wiggs said. "I believe we got to work on being solid defensively late when the game is on the line. I thought Moberly did a great job hitting shots late and our girls did a great job attacking and being aggressive.
"It was two Top 20 teams battling and fighting."
The Lady Raiders will play host to either No. 3 Mineral Area College or No. 6 seed State Fair CC (who play 7 p.m. March 2), in Poplar Bluff at 7 p.m. March 7.
"It's tournament time and you never know what's going to happen," Wiggs said. "Now we have to take care of business."
The region title game will be played 7 p.m. March 10 on the home floor of the highest remaining seed.
Maiya Bergdorf (26 points, 11 rebounds), Mariah Smith and Marihya Hart (15 points each), and Ari Winston (10 rebounds) led Three Rivers who saw McKenna Eddings of Moberly hit them for a game-high 38 points.
Three Rivers (22-4) led 39-35 at halftime but saw the Lady Greyhounds immediately push back early into the third quarter.
The two teams battled back and forth, but a Smith triple gave Three Rivers a little breathing room with a 53-48 lead at the 3-minute mark.
A Bergdorf triple kept the team in front by a handful, 56-51, as her shot fell 20 seconds before the buzzer and that was how the fourth quarter would commence.
The Lady Raiders increased their lead to seven early into the final period, but Moberly would not relent.
An Eddings trey wrapped up a 15-3 run by Moberly as it led 66-59 with five minutes left.
The Lady Raiders weren't going to roll over that easily as Bergdorf hit on back-to-back deuces to pull her squad to within 66-64.
Moberly went back up five with two minutes to go, but a Hart 3-bomb pulled her girls to within 73-71 with 100 seconds remaining.
Moberly held a 75-73 advantage in the waning seconds until Bergdorf struck again and tied the game on another bucket which ultimately sent the teams into the extra quarter.
Moberly scored the first five points of the overtime and that advantage would not be challenged in the last five minutes as the Lady Greyhounds claimed the Region's top prize.
"They had a couple of quick threes early and we didn't get a couple of fouls attacking the basket that we got early on," Wiggs said. "It kind of hurt us there. But I am proud of the girls and how they battled. We have to learn from it and continue to be disciplined late defensively.
"The biggest thing now is getting everybody healthy and ready to go physically, mentally, physically and lock in and work on what we need to do defensively and get comfortable offensively to get ready to make a postseason run."
Alan Dale - Daily American Republic