Allison Utterback’s night turned around in a hurry.
With 10.1 seconds left in a tie game against Martinsville, the Center Grove senior guard called a timeout when her team didn’t have any left — a seemingly fatal error that gave the visiting Artesians two technical foul shots and the ball.
Two missed free throws and a frenetic few seconds later, though, Utterback was on top of the world, hitting a layup at the buzzer to give the 17th-ranked Trojans a thrilling 56-55 triumph.
"I knew that if we wanted to win, I couldn’t dwell on that (timeout)," Utterback said, "so I decided to keep my head in it, and that paid off, I guess."
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryThe basket came at the end of a wild fourth quarter that featured 10 of the game’s 17 lead changes. Center Grove had pulled ahead 54-52 on a pair of Emma LeMasters free throws with 2:59 left but didn’t score again until the final shot. Martinsville tied it on two free throws by Kayana Traylor with 59.2 seconds to go, setting the stage for the late drama.
Martinsville’s Merideth Deckard made one of the two technical shot to put the Artesians up by one, but when Gracie Johnson missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 5.6 seconds left and Cassidy Hardin pulled down the rebound, the Trojans had one last chance and took advantage.
"When I got that rebound at the end, I was like, ‘I’ve got to get it up,’ I know time’s running down," Hardin recalled. "And out of the corner of my eye, I see Allison wide open. So I just passed it to her, and then the rest of the night, it was literally just a blur."
Utterback led the Trojans with 13 points.
Center Grove (9-2) twice battled back from sizeable deficits before the back-and-forth final period.
Down 20-10 in the second quarter, the Trojans put together a 14-2 run, taking a 24-22 lead late in the half before the Artesians responded with two buckets to reclaim the upper hand.
Then, with the visitors up 36-27 two minutes into the second half, Center Grove scored 10 in a row, pulling ahead on an Emma Utterback foul shot.
Coming in, the game was billed as a battle between 2018 Purdue commits Hardin and Traylor, and while Traylor got the better of it early and finished with a game-high 24 points, Hardin — who wound up with 12 points after a quiet start — left in possession of bragging rights, at least until the two potentially meet again in sectional play.
"She had it last year," Hardin said, "so it’s my turn."
Madelyn Bitterling contributed 10 points for the Trojans, while LeMasters added eight.
