Girls bury Newton late with free throws en route to tournament championship game

Greg Woods, Online Editor-in-Chief

At each practice, Manhattan High girls basketball coach Scott Mall has his players shoot 20 free throws. He then has each player report back how many of the 20 they made.

The 2015-16 season is just two games old, but Mall has already seen the fruits of the drill.

Manhattan advanced to the championship game of the season-opening Hays City Shoot-Out with a 46-34 semifinal win over Newton Friday, a game MHS put away at the line, going 6-for-6 at the charity stripe over the final two minutes.

Just minutes after junior Gigi McAtee put her team up 15 in the fourth frame, the Lady Railers climbed back within eight with under three minutes to go. It appeared that Manhattan’s work to stretch its lead so wide in the first three quarters would be all for not.

That’s when the drill paid off most meaningfully.

As part of her 20-point night, senior Madison Mittie connected on all four of her free throws in the closing minutes. Fellow senior Tarrah Bammes also knocked down her two chances at the line. Mall praised his team’s performance at the foul line.

“We have a lot of good free throw shooters,” he said. “Madison Mittie has shown that she’s going to put them in the hole when she gets up there, and then [there are] some girls that are good clutch players. Tarrah Bammes steps up there and hits well; [sophomore] Josie Hilgers hit earlier on free throws. For a young girl in her first real varsity experience, those are big free throws.”

The need for clutch free throws to ice the game may have been expected after the first and second quarters, but perhaps less so after the third period.

The Lady Indians took a low-scoring 6-5 lead after one, and though the offense picked up somewhat on both sides in the second, it was Newton who made a push at the end of the half. After McAtee sunk her second-straight triple to put Manhattan up 14-8, Newton’s Payton Roberts went 4-for-4 at the free throw line, and Abby Schmidt hit on a jumper to tie the game at the break, 14-14.

The third period is when Manhattan made its decisive run.

The Lady Indians jetted out to a 12-0 run to start the second half, thanks in large part to Mittie’s two triples and two breakaway layups off forced turnovers.

Roberts stopped the bleeding with a layup, but the damage continued to be done. Freshman Garrin Williams finished a layup plus a foul, fellow freshman Haleigh Harper made 2-of-3 free throws and Mittie punctuated the frame with a layup.

The lead was 34-18 after three.

Mall explained that there were a number of reasons for the difference in halves.

“One, we got off to a good start, and a lot of it came off our defense. We got some steals, we got some things and pitched the ball ahead and got some shots,” Mall said. “We talked at halftime about using the other side of the floor some. So we did a lot better job of getting a little penetration, and then kicking it to the other side and getting a good look.”

McAtee, who tallied 12 points, attributed the swing of momentum to her team’s pace on offense.

“I think we slowed down. At the end of the [first] half, we started getting really sped up and taking quick shots,” she said. “When we work the ball, we get great looks.”

Turnovers were a problem for Newton, many of them unforced. The Lady Railers finished with 20.

“Their bigs were really good, so we just wanted to pressure the ball as much as possible so it was harder for them to get it inside,” McAtee said. “We did a great job. We find out their weaknesses and take advantage of it.”

Though she led both teams in scoring, Mittie was active on the defensive end as well. She echoed McAtee’s sentiment.

“[Mall] definitely told us that we needed to pressure the ball a lot,” Mittie said. “They had some big post girls, so we knew that we had to [have] backside help with them. I think, overall, we did a pretty good job on defense.”

Manhattan will take on Great Bend Saturday at 5 p.m. for the tournament title.