Girls Basketball: Batavia edges out Hampshire

Updated: December 15, 2011 9:41PM

Batavia’s girls basketball team had to wait 6.6 seconds to secure a win over Hampshire at the Oswego Holiday Classic, but it was 6.6 seconds that had to feel like an eternity.

After Sami Villareal staked her team to a one-point lead with seven seconds in the game, Hampshire had a great chance to get the win. Michelle Dumoulin drove the ball down the court and missed a lay-up, but her sister, Jennifer, was there for the rebound.

Jennifer Dumoulin had an open lay-up for the win as the buzzer sounded, but it just rimmed out, giving Batavia a thrilling 48-47 win.

“I tried to block the shot of (Michelle Dumoulin) and I turned around and (Jennifer Dumoulin) had the ball in her hands, going up for a lay-up,” Batavia sophomore Liza Fruendt said. “It just rolled out. We had somebody looking over us to let us win. It was a lucky one, but we pulled it out.”

Fruendt was a key component in setting the Bulldogs (6-7) up for the win. Two straight baskets from Grace Jakubowski gave the Whip-Purs (4-8) a 41-36 lead with 4:15 left in the game. But Fruendt engineered 9-2 run that gave Batavia a 45-43 lead with 2:04 left.

Fruendt fed Katie Ryan for a lay-up and free throw to start the run, and she followed it up with three buckets of her own to get Batavia back into the lead. Fruendt scored a team-high 16 points in the win.

“It helps having somebody that’s really good,” Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said. “She’s a nice player. I think she’s doing a really solid job of letting things come to her. But when she needs to assert herself, she has done that.”

Hampshire did tie it twice late, on a Michelle Dumoulin lay-up with a minute left and on two free throws from Jennifer Dumoulin with 16 seconds left.

The two missed lay-ups in the final minute were a microcosm of the game for the Whip-Purs. They missed nine lay-ups in the first quarter alone.

“How many missed lay-ups did we have?,” Hampshire coach Ed Haugens asked. “If we make one, we win the game. It’s a very disappointing effort on our kids’ part. They didn’t come to play. All around, it was not a good game at all.”

On Saturday, Batavia will play Larkin at 1:30 p.m. Hampshire gets Rosary at 4:30 p.m. in the third-place game.

“I think this gives us a lot of momentum,” Fruendt said. “Wins like this really help a team, especially when we’re just around .500 and it’s important for us to keep winning. Now hopefully we can get this one on Saturday and go into the break at .500.”

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