Lady Red Devils top Green River on buzzer-beater

Josh Hall
Posted 1/19/18

The Evanston High School girls’ basketball team held a 17-point lead against Green River late in the third quarter. But in the end, it took a last-second shot by Evanston junior Ajahonna Archuleta to lift the Lady Red Devils to a 57-55 win on Thursday against the Lady Wolves to open conference play in the 4A West.

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Lady Red Devils top Green River on buzzer-beater

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EVANSTON — The Evanston High School girls’ basketball team held a 17-point lead against Green River late in the third quarter.

But in the end, it took a last-second shot by Evanston junior Ajahonna Archuleta to lift the Lady Red Devils to a 57-55 win on Thursday against the Lady Wolves to open conference play in the 4A West.

“To be honest, I didn’t know if that was going to go in,” Archuleta said.

Following a Green River turnover, Evanston (9-3, 1-0) took a timeout with 4.9 seconds to play and the game tied at 55.

Evanston senior Emmery Wagstaff, the team’s leading scorer, had an open look from the right corner. But when the ball didn’t go in, Archuleta was there to secure the ball just outside the paint and get a shot off before the final buzzer sounded.

“It shouldn’t have been that close,” Wagstaff said. “We should have kept our lead, but it was still really exciting. I think we were all a little nervous playing in our first home game, first conference game. Our nerves started to get to us, but it was a good win and a very exciting win for the audience and for us.” 

Evanston held a 46-29 lead with 1:23 to play in the third quarter. Green River (6-6, 0-1) responded with an 18-1 run to tie the game at 47 with 4:43 left in to play in the fourth.

Lady Wolves’ senior Andri Dewey, a 5-foot-5 guard, made five 3-pointers during that run.

“We were controlling the game pretty much the entire time, and then we let (Dewey) catch fire,” Evanston coach Jeremy Fessler said. “We don’t recognize that she’s catching fire; don’t rotate out on her; don’t switch the pick and roll. There was just not enough focus in that way, and we didn’t take care of the ball.”

Evanston, ranked third in the state, took a 53-51 lead on a jumper by Tayler Groll with 1:24 to play.

Dewey followed with another 3-pointer and Green River went 1 of 2 from the free-throw line, following an Evanston turnover to take a 55-53 lead with 30 seconds left.

Wagstaff tied the game at 55 after sinking two free throws with 20 seconds left, and a Green River turnover gave the Lady Red Devils one more opportunity to finish what they started.

“We had a lot of silly turnovers at the end, so then you get down, come back, call a timeout and get a good look from Emmy in the corner,” Fessler said. “AJ slides down and gets that game winner.

“It’s jubilation. It could be the end of the world, but we’re 1-0 (in conference). When you’re winning, you’re doing good things.”

Evanston controlled the tempo from the start, jumping out to a 15-10 first-quarter lead, before going into the break with a 36-22 advantage. 

The Lady Red Devils maintained at least a 13-point lead throughout the third quarter. 

“When we get a lead like that, we can’t just think, ‘Oh, we’ve got this,’” Wagstaff said. “Teams can always come back and that’s exactly what they did. We need to get a lead and maintain it.” 

Green River pulled within single digits with 6:43 to play in the fourth quarter. It was the first time the Lady Wolves came within 10 points since the score was 27-18 with 2:35 to play in the second quarter. 

Much of that credit was due to Dewey.

“She just kept hitting 3s,” Archuleta said. 

But in the end, it was Archuleta that played the hero role as her teammates mobbed her on the floor after the game winner.

Wagstaff led Evanston with 21 points, while Groll added 12.

“I felt like we had some really good moments where we all came together and then had some bad moments where we had (lapses) and made silly mistakes, which we can’t have,” Wagstaff said.