On a night where it seemed like nothing was going right and nothing was working, Mountain Ridge came together and pulled off a dramatic come-from-behind victory over Bingham, 37-33.
After trailing for the majority of the game and putting up a total of 18 points offensively in the first three quarters, the Mountain Ridge offense caught fire in crunch time when it mattered most. Mountain Ridge scored 19 points in the final frame and by locking things down defensively, was able to grab the hard-fought victory.
“We probably had our worst shooting night of the season. The girls were able to find a way to gut it out. That is just the way these girls are,” said Mountain Ridge head coach Matt Montgomery. “They fight for each other. I’ve coached them for a lot of years and they’re just a really good group of kids. They’re grindy, they fight, they don’t care who scores or who gets the credit.”
Bingham seemed to have Mountain Ridge’s number all night. While they were able to stay within arm’s reach, Mountain Ridge just could not find the back of the basket. It was with six minutes left in the game that Montgomery decided to make the biggest adjustment of the game and switch to a full court press.
“When we press, we play more loose and the offense is obviously better. They stopped thinking and just started playing, getting hyper aggressive and they just got lost in the game, that’s when they’re at their best,” added Montgomery. “We ran a couple of simple screen actions and made some adjustments with our spacing. The biggest thing is we got them in a situation where they could play free.”
After trailing for the majority of the game and finding a way to fight back for the victory, Montgomery feels that this type of win can only instill confidence and belief as the season pushes forward.
“This was a good game for the girls to go through to see that they can do it and pull out the win in games like this. They felt like they needed to beat these guys and now they know they are capable of coming from behind,” Montgomery said.