Lady Jays, Murillo provide overtime thriller

That had to happen, that never happen, and then it happened. Still yet, that scenario was just good enough to get the Lady Jays basketball team into overtime and eventually their first win.

Junior Mikaela Murillo’s 3-point game tying shot with four seconds left in regulation helped set up a 60-57 overtime win over the sixth ranked Western Heights Lady Jets inside the GHS gymnasium.

Western Heights (3-3) held a 50-43 lead with :33 remaining and it seemed Guthrie was about to drop to 0-2 on the year, but Murillo drilled a shot to bring the lead down to five. On the following possession out of a time-out, Western Heights was called for an offensive foul and just nine seconds later senior Allyson Chadd’s field goal made it a 50-47 deficit with just 16 ticks left on the game clock.

A quick foul sent the Jets to the free throw line and a chance to perhaps ice the game, but missed both free throws to keep the Guthrie hopes alive and one last possession to tie.

After Heights elected not to foul with a three-point lead, sophomore Melinda Murillo found her sister Mikaela, who got open on a well executed screen from senior Macey Brown, to erupt the home crowd with a seat clearing 3-pointer with four seconds left on the clock to tie the game at 50-50 and to send the game into overtime after a long desperation shot for Heights was no good.

“Coach did a great job of setting up that final play out of the time-out,” head coach Terry Carris said of assistant coach Jeff Fuller in his radio post game interview. “That was a great pick from Macey,” Carris concluded.

Listen to the radio call of Mikalea Murillo’s game-tying shot to send it into overtime:

Allyson Chadd finished with a season high 14 points to go with nine rebounds in the win over Western Heights.

In the overtime period, the Jets needed just 20 seconds to score, but Mikaela Murillo drilled her fourth three-pointer on the night to give her team back the lead, 53-52 with two minutes to play.

Heights tied the game again at 56-all, but Gracynn Smith’s shot followed by Mikaela Murillo lay up, off a turnover, gave Guthrie their biggest lead of the night and the lead for good. Although, Heights had two chances to tie the game on their final possession, but were unable to find an uncontested shot.

Mikaela Murillo finished the game with a game high 22 points and was four-of-five from beyond the arc to earn the Farmers and Merchants Bank Player of the Game.

Allyson Chadd paced Guthrie throughout the night with 14 points and nine rebounds.

Western Height jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the game’s first six minutes, but Guthrie rallied for a 6-2 run to trail 11-8 after the first quarter. After trailing 22-20 at the half, Guthrie outscored Heights 13-8 in the third quarter and held their first lead with Chadd’s bucket 65 seconds into the third quarter.

Guthrie Scoring: Mikaela Murillo 22, Allyson Chadd 14, Gracynn Smith 7, Monique King 6, Melinda Murillo 6, Ashley Shields 3, Jill Davis 2

Girls Conference Games: Carl Albert 44, Harrah 40 – Shawnee 57, Noble 8 – Piedmont 27, El Reno 22