Perrysburg sophomore Hayley Griggs, facing, celebrates along with her teammates after hitting a game-wining three-point jump shot as time expires in a game against Springfield on February 9, 2023 at Perrysburg High School in Perrysburg, Ohio. Perrysburg defeated Springfield 51-49.
Scott W. Grau | Sentinel-Tribune
PERRYSBURG — Perrysburg sophomore guard Hayley Griggs banked home a three-pointer at the buzzer to lift the Yellow Jackets to a 51-49 girls basketball win over Springfield Thursday.
Griggs’ winning shot was set up after Springfield junior forward Gretchen Sigman, after getting a steal, was fouled with 5.5 seconds remaining, but Sigman missed the front end a one-and-one with the Blue Devils in the lead, 49-48.
Perrysburg senior forward Megan Gibbs grabbed the rebound, and two passes later, it was in Griggs’ hands, who popped the game-winner just before the final horn sounded.
Griggs says she did not call the “bank,” but says “it counts anyways.”
“I thought the shot was late, honestly, but I just shot it up there and thought it was way off, but I banked it,” Griggs said.
The Yellow Jackets finish the regular season 16-6 overall and 10-4 in the Northern Lakes League after defeating a Springfield (16-6, 11-3) team that was potentially playing for a share of the conference title.
A Blue Devils’ win and Anthony Wayne loss to Napoleon Thursday, and the Devils and one-loss Generals would have shared the championship at 10-2, but Perrysburg’s win guaranteed an outright title for AW.
Freshman guard Kallie Thames led Perrysburg, coming off the bench to score 17 points with two steals. Sophomore guard Chloe Kilbride had 11 points and five rebounds and Griggs scored 11.
Sigman led Springfield with 17 points and five steals, senior guard Kendall Carruthers had 15 points and six rebounds, and junior guard A’Leah Hodges had 12 points and five rebounds.
In a first half that saw only four combined turnovers, two by each team, the Yellow Jackets opened a 28-22 lead heading into the locker room.
The Blue Devils opened the second half on a 10-3 run and Sigman hit a three-pointer with 45 seconds left in the third, giving Springfield a 38-35 lead.
Carruthers connected on a triple with 5:15 left in the game, giving the Blue Devils a 47-41 lead, but the Yellow Jackets closed on a 10-2 run.
“It’s huge. It’s a great win. It’s a great comeback,” Perrysburg coach Todd Sims said. “That’s why you don’t give up until the very end and hope things happen, and it did.”
Helping the Jackets in the final seconds was Carruthers missing the front end of a one-and-one with 10.4 seconds remaining and then Sigman doing the same with 5.5 seconds on the clock.
“Like I told the girls, ‘That (Griggs’) shot wasn’t the reason we lost. We did a lot of things down the stretch. We missed wide open layups, and we missed free throws down the stretch on one-and-ones,’” Springfield coach Clifton Hodges said.
“We should have been up 10 points, but we weren’t because we weren’t disciplined enough to do the little things down the stretch.”
The Blue Devils forced seven second half turnovers, and during one third quarter stretch went on a 6-0 run, scoring off three straight steals. Hodges would have liked to have seen that effort the entire game.
“I didn’t think we came out with any energy in the first half,” Hodges said. “They hit a lot of shots — I thought they were shooting the ball very well and we weren’t making many shots.
“The second half we kind of turned it up defensively, hit a few shots, and I think if we played defense in the first half like we did in the second half it would have been a different game. We just didn’t.”
In addition, Perrysburg got off 14 more shots, in part because of 17 offensive rebounds. The Jackets were 19-for-52 (37%) from the field while the Blue Devils were 16-for-38 (42%).
The Jackets outrebounded the Devils 36-27, but that was in part due to nine dead ball rebounds that bounced out of bounds and went Perrysburg’s way. None went Springfield’s way.
The Jackets were 4-for-8 from the free throw line and had nine turnovers while Springfield was 8-for-12 from the stripe with eight turnovers.
Gibbs had six points and a team-leading eight rebounds, sophomore guard Ayla Turk had four points and five rebounds and junior center Wrigley Takats had two points and six rebounds.
Sophomore Jada Battle had five points and four rebounds to round out the Devils’ scoring.
