Highland girls notch ‘ugly’ senior night win over conference rival

It wasn’t a pretty work of art for the Highland girls basketball team, but when the dust cleared, the Bulldogs prevailed once again.

Larissa Taylor dropped in a clutch baseline bucket with 36 seconds left to give Highland a two-point lead and the Bulldogs held on for a 35-33 win over Mississippi Valley Conference foe Civic Memorial on senior night at Highland High School.

“It was ugly but it was a win and I told the girls ugly wins are better than ugly losses,” Highland coach Clint Hamilton said. “We find a way to win in a game that’s a big rivalry.”

Highland (21-9) clinched the Mississippi Valley Conference a week ago and thanks to Friday’s win went 10-0 in conference play while winning the conference in back-to-back seasons. The 10-0 mark by Highland in the MVC was their first unbeaten run through the conference since 2011.

“It’s a great conference and for the kids to win the conference and go undefeated, it’s not very common that it happens, so to pull that off is big (for us),” Hamilton said.

A Sophia Fleming three-ball pushed HHS out to a 21-15 lead late in the second quarter but Civic Memorial’s Marlee Ogden answered with a triple in the final minute of the quarter, cutting the ed to 21-18 at the half.

Highland’s offense began to heat up in the second half. A 9-0 from the middle of the third quarter to the start of the quarter capped by Lauren Maas driving two from Abby Schultz gave the Bulldogs a 30-20 lead and a little breathing room.

Maas had a solid night playing tough defense and getting to the rim for shots as she finished with 10 points.

“I think we always need people to penetrate gaps because they were double-teaming, so we definitely needed our guards to be driving to take away some that pressure from them,” Maas said.

Civic Memorial (21-9,7-3) did not go away. The Eagles clawed their way back into thanks to a three-ball that topped off a 9-3 run tying the game at 33-33 with 36 seconds left.

After a Highland timeout, it was the Bulldogs turn and Taylor answered the bell knifing between two Civic Memorial defenders to drop in a beautiful layup making it 35-33 with 14.3 seconds left.

“ I just tried to clear my mind,” Taylor said. “I just cleared my mind and acted like it’s just a layup like in practice.”

The Eagles had one final chance to tie it or win but came up empty on their final possession.

In spite of the loss, Civic Memorial coach Mike Arbuthnot was pleased with his club’s effort.

“We had to try to neutralize their size and i thought we did an outstanding job and you’ve got to give the credit defensively-they are a tough match and we’re a transition team and we like to shoot threes and they got out on us,” Arbuthnot said. It was good well played high school game to end the regular season with both will get both teams ready for postseason.”

Schultz and Taylor added 9 and 7 points for Highland.

Marlee Durbin and Belle Edwards led Civic Memorial with 14 and 9 points respectively.

Top-seed Highland begins Class 3A regional play on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in a semifinal contest against ninth-seeded Charleston.

Third-seeded CM will open Class 3A regional play on Monday night with a 7:30 p.m. semifinal matchup against Centralia.