The Lady Tigers basketball team suffered a heartbreaking loss to the rival Frederick Warriors on Thursday night.
The game started off in typical Tiger fashion, with a very low scoring first quarter. Anna Hefner scored four of Erie’s seven in the first, but they trailed still by one.
In the second, Erie (3-9, 0-4) continued their streak of heating up in the second quarter and promptly went on an 11-2 run, broken by a pair of Mylie Tarnowski free throws. Hefner brought her total to eight for Erie, but that came with three fouls. Erie led 22-13 at the break.
The 3rd quarter brought much of the same for Erie. Senior McKayley Green began chipping in, putting up six points in the quarter. It was capped by a dead-on Kaitlyn Patterson three-pointer in only her third game of the year due to a knee injury. Her three-ball made it 35-25 with one quarter left to play.
Then, disaster struck for the Tigers. They allowed Frederick (7-5, 1-3) to pull back within 5 points, and then went back and forth until the score was 40-37 in favor of Erie. With that score, and 3:30 left in the game, Coach Pfeifer made the decision to chew clock. The offense ran stagnant for a minute and a half until someone finally took, and missed, a shot. In the process, the Tigers second leading scorer, Anna Hefner, fouled out. She finished with 12 points. The Warriors coach, Brett Anderson, called a timeout. He drew up a play to get the Warriors best three point shooter, Tori DuFour, an open look from the corner. She promptly drilled it to tie the game. In the following seconds, Patterson was stripped from a double team and Tarnowski hit a layup to give the Warriors the lead. They would hold on to that lead for the rest of the game, despite another three points from Patterson, who lead Erie with 13 points in her return to the court. DuFour was fouled twice and made all four of her free throws to ice the game for Frederick. The Warriors pulled it out, 50-44.
After the game, Coach Anderson credited DuFour for her composure towards the end. “I know (DuFour) hit four threes, and all four of her free throws, and ultimately that comes down to the difference in the game.”
Erie plays next against Holy Family at home. Frederick hosts Berthoud. Both games are on Tuesday, January 16. These two teams meet again on February 6.
You can watch the archived livestream of the game HERE.