By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Six years ago, when Marty Atnip took over as Diamond’s girls basketball coach, he started to lay a foundation and set the culture for his program. The Wildcats went 0-25 that first year.
“But we knew that we were going to continue to get better, continue to do the right things and we dreamed of this day,” Atnip said Saturday. “It came true today.”
That dream: the program’s first district championship since 1986.
Playing on its home court, Diamond found itself trailing by seven points with less than three minutes remaining but finished the game on a 9-1 run to top Lamar 54-53 in the Class 3 District 12 title game on Saturday.
The Wildcats, now 22-5, advance to face Fair Grove (24-4) on Tuesday in the sectional round at Carthage.
“It’s surreal,” Atnip said. “What a great game. You’ve got to tip your hat, Lamar came to play. They did everything they could to win the game and it just came down to making the clutch basket at the right time and getting stops. I couldn’t be more proud of this team. They just kept their nose to the grindstone and kept working, clawed their way back in it. A great district championship on both sides and we get the monkey off our back. Thirty-seven years, it’s been a long time coming and it’s a testament to the ones that came before.”
In what was a nail biter throughout, second-seeded Diamond found itself in a 52-45 hole against the fourth-seeded Tigers with just 2:53 left in the game. The Wildcats didn’t panic.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
First, sophomore Kabrie Parmley got her own offensive rebound and scored to make it a five-point game with 2:42 left.
Then, after a Lamar turnover, junior Grace Frazier drove through traffic for a layup to make it 52-49 with 2:10 remaining.
Frazier followed that up with a steal and another layup to get Diamond within a point with 1:51 on the clock.
Lamar’s Jaycee Doss made a free throw with 1:36 to go and Frazier made one with 20 seconds left. Lamar led 53-52.
The Tigers turned it over on the ensuing inbounds play; Marrisa DeJager tracked down an errant pass and got the ball to Frazier. She found sophomore Lauren Turner near the baseline and Turner drove and scored the go-ahead basket with 11 seconds remaining.
On the other end, DeJager helped force a Lamar turnover in the paint and Parmley scooped up the ball as time expired.
“We talk about coming up clutch in clutch moments,” Atnip said. “Taking it a possession at a time. Down seven with two-and-a-half minutes to go, hey, anything can happen and they proved it tonight. We got some key stops, got some steals, they turned the ball over there at the end. We did what we had to. It’s like March Madness, survive and advance and that’s what we did tonight. It’s a testament to the team. It’s not anything I’ve done, it’s really about them.”
“We made sure to pack our schedule with a lot of tough games,” Turner said. “We’ve won some and lost some but it’s all about the grit, who wants it more and who’s willing to push harder.”
“Coach drew up a play, Grace got the ball and threw it to me and all that was going through my mind was just layup,” she said of the game winner.
Lamar led 11-9 after a quarter and Diamond led 23-19 at halftime. The Wildcats led by as many as eight points (27-19) in the third quarter, but Lamar tied it at 30 and took a one-point lead on free throws by Zavrie Wiss and Baylee Heckadon. It was tied at 39 going into the fourth.
“They did a great job of scoring every time they got the ball,” Lamar coach Derek Judd said. “Grace Frazier getting to the basket was pretty unstoppable there. I thought our girls did a great job of sliding over and trying to take that away but she’s a great player. I didn’t think we did any one thing that changed the outcome of the game. I think it’s just those little things that add up over time.”
Frazier led all scorers with 25 points and had nine in the fourth quarter. Turner added 18 and made four 3-pointers.
“That’s nothing new,” Atnip said. “They’re consistently the leaders, but it was also those role players. When you only win by one it couldn’t have been just two. There were multiple people with big buckets. Those role players have to do their jobs. It’s a team win.”
Parmley added six points, junior Caitlin Suhrie had three and junior Makaylynn Lafferty scored two.
Lamar, which finished 14-13, got 16 points from senior Kennedy Evans, 14 from Wiss, 13 from senior Ashlyn Stettler, seven from Heckadon and three from junior Jaycee Doss.
