GENESEO — Geneseo girls basketball notched their second win of the season Monday night when they came back to beat Mt. Morris, 44-39.
Mt. Morris took an early lead while stifling the Geneseo offense in the paint and led 14-8 after the first quarter.
The Blue Devils had more success in the second quarter and cut the Mt. Morris lead to one with thirty seconds to play, when Mt. Morris head coach Marcie Monegro took a time out. Geneseo senior guard Anna Miskell stole the subsequent inbound pass and converted the fast-break lay-up to take the lead and go into halftime up 21-20.
“It’s much better to be up one than down one at the half, and we had a nice spurt there at the end of the quarter,” Geneseo head coach Paul Hazard said after the game.
The second half continued to be tightly contested, but it was Mt. Morris senior guard Grace D’Angelo who hit a mid-range buzzer beater to regain the lead, 29-27, going into the final quarter.
Mt. Morris scored another six straight points to open the fourth quarter and take an 8-point lead with just 4:30 to play. But Miskell came up with a clutch 3-pointer to cut into the lead and seemingly steal all of the momentum that Mt. Morris was building.
“I thought Anna took great shots tonight, and when we moved the ball and settled down we played much better basketball,” Hazard said.
Senior center Jordan Welch then scored a lay-up, the Geneseo defense forced a turnover, and senior guard Laura Olverd scored again to cut the Mt. Morris lead to one, 35-34, and force Monegro to call another time out.
“We kept switching man and zone defenses,” Hazard said. “When we were in man we found a man, and the kids played hard.”
Olverd stole another pass coming out of the time out and took it coast-to-coast to take the lead with two minutes to play. The Geneseo defense continued to force turnovers and bad shots, while Welch and Miskell scored a combined six points in the final minutes to pull away for the win.
Geneseo (2-1) plays again at Livonia on Wednesday.