Pleasant holds off River Valley in tense MOAC girls basketball thriller

CALEDONIA — Points were at a premium Friday night, but Pleasant prevailed at River Valley.

The Spartans held on in the final second to beat RV 40-39 in a Mid Ohio Athletic Conference girls basketball game.

"I told them to enjoy the win because we are on the road again Monday night down at Bishop Ready," Pleasant coach Keriann Pratt said of her message to the team following the nip-and-tuck victory. "Our league is tough. Anyone can win our league this year, so it’s going to be fun to watch."

The scoreboard was tied three times in the fourth period with two lead changes and an opportunity at a final change after RV freshman Megan Clausing nailed a 3-pointer from the left wing with 0:00.9 left in the game and trailing by a point.

Pleasant inbounded the ball from under the RV basket and threw it to midcourt where it was picked off by Brooklyn Mosher. The RV senior was unable to get a shot off before the buzzer although it appeared she was grabbed by a Pleasant player on the interception. No call was made and Pleasant survived.

"I just went in and asked the girls, 'Did the last play of the game where we felt like we got fouled cost us the game?' Not a one of them raised their hand," River Valley coach Tim Chiles said. "They knew. We did it to ourselves. We should have never been in that situation. We just didn’t play with enough confidence."

It was a slog all night for both teams.

River Valley made just 26% of its 2-pointers and was 5 of 25 on 3-pointers for 20%. The Vikes only went to the line 10 times and made six. Meanwhile, Pleasant converted 36% of its 2-pointers, but was 2 of 14 from the arc for 14%. The Spartans made their free throw, dropping 14 of 19 for the game and 7 of 11 in the fourth quarter.

"(The Spartans) are a good basketball team. They play extremely hard, but we really felt if we would execute and take are of the basketball, we’d be okay and we just didn’t," Chiles said. "We were there all night, and we looked good at times, but man, there were times where we just struggled. It was all around and from top to bottom. We’ve just got to get better and more consistent."

Pleasant jumped out to a very early 5-0 lead using a 1-3-1 three-quarter-court press to stymie the Vikings, but the Spartans had trouble getting out of neutral in the half-court. Pleasant led just 9-6 after the first quarter and only 13-10 with less than two minutes to go in the half.

Late in the second period, RV's Morgan Nemeth drained a 3-pointer, and Mosher followed with a shot from out top with eight seconds left to send the Vikes to the locker room with a 16-15 lead.

The Spartans weren't flustered by the the late turn on the scoreboard.

"When we go into halftime, we really look at what we hold people to," Pratt said. "We have been scoring a lot of defensive points on our pressure and stuff. That really helps us get things going."

Makyha Rodgers dropped in a 3-pointer from the wing to start the third period and stake the Vikings to a 19-15 lead, but like Pleasant in the first half, RV struggled to string positive plays together. It was tied at 26-26 entering the fourth period.

"We started executing at the end of the half offensively and then we went through a lull again," Chiles said. "We talked about running the offense and not forcing things. I felt we were better at that in the second half, but there are still times when we forced some shots rather than being patient and getting the shot that we wanted."

Pleasant's Avah Steele, who scored seven of her 11 points in the final eight minutes, gave her team the lead with a pair of foul shots then bumped it to 30-26 with 4:42 left on a drive to the basket. Over the next 90 seconds, Mosher popped a 3-pointer and Clausing made a layup to give RV a 31-30 lead.

Tied at 31, Clausing stole the ball and scored in transition, but eight seconds later, Pleasant beat them back down the court and scored a layup on a Steele-to Emerson Williams play to tie it again. After an RV miscue, Williams hit a 3-pointer with 1:43 left, A Whitney Waddell foul shot with 61 seconds left built Pleasant lead to 37-33.

Steele seemed to put it away at 40-36 with two free throws with 13 seconds left, but Vikes gave themselves an opportunity in the final moments.

"We’ve got to finish," Chiles said. "I think our nerves got to us. We were just nervous for whatever reason. I said it’s Pleasant, just go play."

It was River Valley's first loss in the MOAC as it fell to 3-3 overall and 2-1 in the league. Mosher finished with 18 points and Clausing with seven, all of hers coming in the fourth period.

"We’ve struggled with consistently scoring throughout the year. We’ve got to be better at that. We’ve got to get more people to score," Chiles said, later adding, "We missed too many easy ones tonight. We missed a ton of layups and missed our free throws. If we put those in, it’s a different game."

Pleasant moves to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the conference. Waddell scored 12 points, while Steele had her 11 and Williams added nine points.

"The kids are doing well with dealing with pressure," Pratt said of her team's late-game execution. "They’re young and they’ve just gotten more experience and more experience. With each game we see improvements with a lot of our young kids. It’s a great rivalry game, and I’m looking forward to them coming to our place.

"It was a fun game. I really enjoyed it. The crowd was great. It was a nice atmosphere for high school girls basketball."

rmccurdy@gannett.com

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