POPLAR BLUFF — The ninth-ranked Three Rivers women's basketball team gave those in attendance at the Libla Family Sports Complex some free basketball on Monday night as the Raiders held off National Park College Nighthawks 73-62 in overtime. Despite National Park making a 10-4 run in the final five minutes of regulation to tie it up at 60, the Raiders only allowed two points in the five extra minutes of basketball to give them the dub and make them 9-0 at home so far in the season.
"You've got to win them how you can," Three Rivers coach Alex Wiggs said. "It wasn't pretty, but the goal is to win the game and you've got to find a way to do it. We're a little banged up at the moment with a few players injured and we had to switch up our rotations a little bit, but we were able to get it done (Monday)."
The last minute of regulation wasn't pretty for the Raiders (12-2), culminating to a sequence of events in the dying seconds as Wiggs tried to call a timeout, but instead the Raiders were charged with a traveling violation, giving National Park (5-8) the ball under their basket with only 1.4 seconds on the clock.
"The officials told me that they couldn't hear me, which I don't know how that could happen because I was the loudest one in the gym," Wiggs said.
Fortunately for the Raiders, Kiera Neal was able to get the steal on the inbound and just hit the front of the rim on the half-court desperation shot at the buzzer. Neal led the Raider offense with 17 points in the game, all coming after halftime, with 15 in the second half and two in overtime.
"My team needed me and I needed to step up (in the second half)," Neal said. "I saw we weren't getting to the basket so I had to get to the basket."
Behind Neal on the stat sheet, Amelia Corasaniti and off the bench, Da'Naya Ross each had 15 points and starting point guard Samyah Jordan was in double figures with 14. Caitlyn Lord made her presence known down low with 13 rebounds and Ross was one rebound shy of a double-double with nine.
"The biggest thing for us is that we need to get stops," Jordan said. "Keep moving the ball around and finding the open gap to take the basket."
It took Three Rivers a little bit to find their footing at the start as the Nighthawks led 17-14 at the end of the first. However, the Raiders were able to get on a 7-4 run, capped off by a gritty drive to the basket by Ross to tie it at 21 and converted on the and-1 opportunity to give the Raiders the lead with a little over five minutes until halftime. In the final seconds of the first half, the Raiders held a 2-point lead until Jordan hit a 3-point bucket at the buzzer to give Three Rivers a 30-25 lead at the break, capping off an 11-4 run.
The Nighthawks were able to keep pace in the second half up until overtime, when they were shut out by the Raider defense until there were 26 seconds left on the clock, but by then, it was a forgone conclusion with the Raiders up by 11.
The Raiders only have a couple more games before the calendar flips to 2026, as they'll be in the Shelton State Classic in Tuscaloosa, Ala., taking on South Georgia Tech on Saturday at 3 p.m. and Kilgore on Sunday at noon.
Robert Augsdorfer - Daily American Republic