By Kai Raymer (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
No second place this year.
For the first time since 1984, the Willard Lady Tigers are district basketball champions.
Senior point guard Jada Holloman scored a game-high 30 as Willard held off Bolivar 64-59 in the Class 5 District 10 Tournament championship game at Southwest Baptist University.
“I’m just incredibly proud of our girls and appreciative of their hard work,” said Willard coach JJ Adamson. “I’m a very blessed person. We have great young ladies that play for us and an awesome coaching staff. It’s a blessing to be a part of this team.”
Willard will play West Plains or Marshfield on March 10 in the Class 5 sectional round. The location for the game has yet to be determined.
West Plains and Marshfield play for the District 9 championship at 5:30 p.m. Friday in West Plains.
The previous three seasons, Willard had lost in its district title game.
“It was a goal of ours to finally get that done,” Holloman said. “It feels awesome that this is the year we nailed it – my senior year.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Willard played Bolivar three times in the regular season and won all three meetings by 30 or more points.
Thursday’s matchup was far different. The Lady Liberators hung with Willard from start to finish.
Lexi Berry’s 3-pointer with 1:40 left brought Bolivar (14-12 overall) within 58-55.
“I have to give Coach (Ben) Glasgow and his staff a ton of credit. His kids were awesome tonight,” Adamson said. “We had a devil of a time trying to stop them. His kids had phenomenal effort.”
Willard (22-4 overall) stood tall down the stretch.
The Lady Tigers, leading 61-59 with 17 seconds left, made the first of two free throws. Willard missed the second but grabbed the offensive rebound to deny Bolivar a chance to tie.
Holloman went seven-for-eight at the free throw line in the fourth quarter to help Willard seal it.
“It’s hard to beat a team three times, let alone four times,” said Holloman, a Loyola-Chicago soccer signee. “We knew it was going to be a challenge coming in. We didn’t hit our shots in the first half like we wanted to, but we came through and got the (win).”
On February 26, Willard ended the regular season with a double-overtime loss at Parkview.
Adamson said the Lady Tigers learned a lot from that game.
“We made some errors, mentally and strategically, down the stretch,” Adamson said. “We’ve worked on fixing those a ton in practice this week because very rarely in the postseason do you have blowout wins. I personally think we had to go through that double-overtime loss to be able to win this game tonight.”
Bri Adamson and Ariana Patillo combined for 24 points for Willard. Patillo scored all 12 of her points on 3-pointers.
Willard led 53-46 with 4:20 remaining before Bolivar mounted a comeback..
Berry finished with 26 points in her final career game.
At times, she single handedly broke Willard’s stingy full-court press.
“She’s phenomenal,” Adamson said. “We were putting one, two, three kids on her trying to get the ball out of her hands. She’s a great player.”
Willard 64, Bolivar 59
Bolivar 16 15 11 17 — 59
Willard 20 15 12 17 — 64
Willard (22-4 overall) – Holloman 30, Patillo 12, B. Adamson 12, A. Adamson 4, C. Crawford 3, Sims 2, Mills 1
Bolivar (14-12 overall) – Berry 26, Roweton 17, Williamson 8, VanDeren 6, Larimore 2
