Trailing rival Turlock High by a 31-24 score with four minutes remaining in regulation of Thursday night’s Central California Athletic League contest at Bulldog Arena, the Pitman High varsity girls basketball team scored nine unanswered points to force overtime en route to a 37-32 victory.
The Pride improved to 8-12 overall and to 3-1 against conference opponents, while the Bulldogs dropped to 8-15 overall and remained winless in four games in CCAL play.
Leading the charge for Pitman was senior Dailynn Greener, scoring eight of her game-high 16 points in the fourth quarter and overtime period. Greener was a game removed from dropping 22 points in a 47-43 victory over Enochs on Tuesday to move into second on the program’s all-time scoring list with 1,103 points. She passed Jasmine Washington’s 1,099 points scored from 2007 to 2011 and is now only looking up at Kaylin Randhawa’s 1,285 points from 2015 to 2018.
Greener converted a pair of layups and sank a free throw during the fourth-quarter comeback, and received support via a timely three-pointer from senior Miley Zamora.
“I feel pretty good after this one,” Greener said. “It started off rough, but we just kept pushing.”
Knotted at 31 with 11 seconds remaining in regulation, the Pride inbounded to Greener, who was quickly double-teamed, prompting a cross-court pass to sophomore Jasmine Bedoya, wide open at the top of the key. Bedoya drained the shot, but not before the buzzer sounded.
Bedoya bounced back quickly in overtime. After Greener finally broke the scoreless tie two minutes into the period with a trio of free throws, Bedoya drained a three-pointer to extend the Pride lead to 37-31 with 25 seconds remaining.
“My shot didn't count, but I knew that I still had to do whatever it takes in overtime,” Bedoya said. “After being down so late, we were just glad that we got to play another four minutes.”
Pitman head coach Parmine Randhawa had a simple message for her team between periods.
“I said, ‘It is what it is, okay?’ Obviously it would have been nice if Jasmine’s shot counted and we would have skipped the overtime, but we had another four minutes to move on,” Randhawa. “I ride with them all the time. They're my girls, and I have all the faith in the world in them to do what they need to do to win, even when things are not necessarily going our way.”
Greener scored just six points on two field goals in the first half, which ended with the Pride leading 16-12. The Bulldogs took a 23-22 lead heading into the fourth backed by a five-point flurry from senior Nadia Myotte and more shooting struggles from the Pride, who put up just six points in the third frame, all at the free throw line.
