NORFOLK, Virginia — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore seemed like it did everything it needed to advance to the finals of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament.
The Hawks got offense from an unexpected source.
They handcuffed the conference Player of the Year for much of the game.
And they got a huge shot with seconds remaining from their most experienced player.
But they left Howard too much time.
Senior Mya Thomas (Chesapeake, Virginia) drained the biggest shot of her career — a baseline floater with 10.4 left to give the Hawks a 60-59 lead — before the Bison took a timeout to draw something up.
After the inbound pass, the Hawks played tight defense as the seconds wound down, but a spin at the free throw line by Howard senior Brooklyn Fort-Davis, got her a step on Lainey Allen (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania) and a somewhat wild shot found its way through the hoop and contact with Mahogany Lester (Virginia Beach, Virginia) with 1.8 seconds left.
Fort-Davis converted the and-one to give the Bison a 62-60 lead and a desperate heave by the Hawks was not close.
"That's a very disappointing loss for us," Batchelor said. "I thought we fought well enough and played well enough to win the game. Taking down a champion is always a greater challenge and I thought they found a way with 10 seconds to go to get a win. I thought these kids gave us everything that they could give us. I'm really proud of the way they played and we'll just sit around and say 'what could we have done differently?' And we'll beat ourselves up about that until we get on the floor again."
But sitting outside the locker room following the end of the game, Batchelor had his first opportunity to second guess himself and came up with nothing.
"Offense beats defense every day," Batchelor said. "I thought we defended them well. My former assistant coach Revonda Whitley texted me and asked if I would do anything different with 10.4 on the clock and my immediate response was 'no.' I thought we did everything we wanted to do, it just didn't work out for us."
While the final two huge plays of the game will get most of the attention, there were actually three lead changes in the final 15 seconds of the contest and the first was also key.
Allen had put the Hawks up 58-56 with 44 second left and Howard took a timeout to set up the offense. Kaniyah Harris missed a shot in the lane, but Krislyn Marsh ended up with the rebound on the floor and called a timeout.
Out of the second timeout, Howard couldn't get a good look and Harris — who came into the game 2-of-14 from behind the arc on the year — took a long three from the top of the key with Zamara Haynes (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) closing out. The ball seemed to defy physics as it hit front rim, bounced upward and found its way in for a 59-58 Howard lead with 13.7 seconds left.
"I think you sometimes don't realize when you are competing that there are two teams trying to win," Batchelor said. "We all want to win, but at the end of the day we found a way to win against Morgan. Today, a three-point shot by somebody who doesn't take three-point shots hits the front of the rim, rolls over and goes in.
"The ball bounced that way for them today. That was a big shot. I thought that was a bigger shot than any other play at that time."
The Hawks faced their first adversity of the contest when they were down 14-6 early, but they dug their way out with an 8-0 run and tied it at 14-14.
"They fought all year long," Batchelor said. "We got some kids who came in off the bench and gave us some offensive production and we talked about just being resilient. We knew it was going to be a battle. I expected us to have to go through something like that and I thought they responded well and we started making some shots."
UMES took a 22-19 lead with 4:46 to go in the second and began to build, pushing it to eight before the Bison closed it to 34-28 at the break.
"Our point guard play was really good from Cache' Wilson (Baltimore, Maryland) to Mya," Batchelor said. "I thought they made good decisions, they found the right people and they made the next pass. We did the things that we needed to do to put the ball in the basket. I was proud of the way we fought back."
While the third quarter has often been the Hawks' Achilles heel this season, they pushed the lead to as many as 11 points with 6:24 left in the third and held on for a 48-41 lead to start the fourth.
"After the third quarter we thought we had put ourselves in a good position after winning the third by one, but then we came out a little flat in the beginning of the fourth quarter. We didn't score a couple of times and I think they capitalized."
Howard tied the game for the first time in the fourth at 48-48 and there would be seven lead changes over the final 7:44.
Defensively it was a big turnaround from the last time the two teams met in Washington D.C. when Howard pulled away for the 80-59 win. The coaching staff didn't change the defensive strategy from that contest. The players just did a better job of executing it.
"We pretty much stuck to the defensive game plan that we had when we went to play them at their place and that was a huge lopsided loss there," Batchelor said. "Our kids showed how resilient they were."
Lester finished the game with a team-high 14 points and seven rebounds, while also being a key part of a team defensive effort that held Howard's Destiny Howell to 11 points on 4-of-17 shooting. Thomas finished with 12 points, four boards and four assists.
Freshman Jála Bannerman (Baltimore, Maryland) added 11 points including three from deep, while Wilson hit more 3-pointers in the contest (3) than she had all season and finished with nine points and four rebounds.
An end of season loss is always tough, but this one stung a bit more for Batchelor who is in his 19th year at UMES. He faced that head on as he talked to the team afterward.
"It just hurt," Batchelor said. "I told them that I have been doing this for a long time and this was probably the most disappointing loss that I have ever experienced, because it was ours and it was taken away from us by a champion.
"We have to learn from that and learn how to become champions."
