By JIM WALKER

Tribune Sports Editor

 

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Evidently, the St. Joseph Female Flyers are good students who don’t know the meaning of the word quit.

Trailing the entire game and on the brink of defeat, the Female Flyers stormed back in the fourth quarter to tie the game and beat Grace Christian 46-44 in overtime on Friday.

“We started really sluggish, but once we got going we played pretty well,” said St. Joseph coach Nick Miller.

“I was proud of the character our girls showed. We were down the whole game and never quit, even at the end of regulation when it looked pretty deperate.”

The Female Flyers were down 5 points with 15 seconds left and Molly Miller had a putback with three seconds left.

Haley Bartram then tied up the inbounds pass for a jump ball. The possession arrow was in St. Joseph’s favor and Molly Miller drilled a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.

Molly Miller scored the only two points in overtime as the Female Flyers improved to 3-3.

Grace Christian led 9-4 after the first quarter. Hannah Miller scored 5 in the second quarter to get the Female Flyers within 23-15 at the break.

Five different players scored in the third quarter as St. Joseph closed the gap to 31-28. Hannah Miller had 9 points in the fourth quarter comeback.

St. Joseph 4 11 13 16 2 = 46

Grace 9 14 8 13 0 = 44

ST. JOSEPH (3-3): Meg Alexander 2 0 0-0 4, Katie Roach 0 0 0-0 0, Amber Neal 2 0 2-3 6, Sarah Neal 2 0 0-0 4, Becca Patrick 0 0 1-2 1, Hannah Miller 5 2 5-6 21, Haley Bartram 0 1 1-5 4, Molly Miller 2 0 2-6 6. Totals: 13 3 11-22 46. Fouls: 12. Fouled out: None.

GRACE CHRISTIAN: Jodi Carpenter 1 0 0-2 2, Faith Cole 0 0 0-0 0, Jordan Courts 3 0 0-0 6, Lydia Jenkins 0 0 0-0 0, Jacqui Johns 1 0 0-0 2, Alex Nelson 5 2 0-0 16, Fope Olajibe 0 0 0-0 0, Jullian Salyers 4 0 2-4 10, Joran Poppins 4 0 0-2 8. Totals: 18 2 2-8 44. Fouls: 17. Fouled out: None.