SANFORD — The Sanford girls’ basketball team was in trouble. The Spartans were down 10 points to Thornton Academy just after halftime in the Class AA South quarterfinals, and top scorer Julissa McBarron was headed to the bench with four fouls.
And then came a shooting extravaganza. And a few clutch defensive stops. And, at last, the final buzzer, wrapping up a win they’ll remember in Sanford for some time.
McBarron shook off the foul trouble to finish with 21 points, freshman Paige Sevigny had 18 – including 16 in a game-turning third quarter – and No. 4 Sanford edged No. 5 Thornton Academy, 63-59, on Thursday night.
The Spartans trailed by 13 in the first half and 30-20 in the first minute of the third quarter. But a 28-point third quarter helped Sanford storm back into the lead before it wrapped up a trip to the semifinals at Cross Insurance Arena.
“I had so many heart attacks,” said McBarron, who scored Sanford’s final 10 points. “But honestly, it’s an amazing feeling. … With this one, (we knew) ‘This could be it.’ … I really wasn’t ready for the season to be over.”
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Thornton was eliminated despite a star effort from Emma Lizotte. With Addisen Sulikowski out because of an illness, Lizotte stepped up with 28 points and 17 rebounds while fighting through constant double and triple teams.
“It felt like we fought hard in that first half and we had complete control,” said Thornton Coach Suzanne Rondeau, who also got 14 points and 10 rebounds from Katherine LeBlanc, and eight points from Olivia Sirois. “Our game plan was not to let them shoot 3s, let them take it to the rim, and we kind of fell short on that in that third quarter.”
The Spartans erupted after halftime, hitting five 3-pointers in the final 4:30 of the third quarter. Paige Sevigny and her sister, Sadie (11 points), made two apiece and Ava Hudson (9 points) sank one from the corner to put Sanford ahead for the first time at 48-47 with three seconds left in the third.
“Out of halftime, we had a completely different mentality,” Paige Sevigny said. “We shoot so much in practice, and you can tell in games, it really pays off.”
McBarron returned with six minutes left, and after a Lizotte drive put Thornton ahead 54-53 with 4:21 remaining, McBarron knocked down a 3 – Sanford’s seventh of the second half – to put Sanford back on top. The Trojans pulled even on a Hannah Kenniston shot, but a McBarron layup gave the Spartans the lead for good.
Sanford held Thornton without a point on its last five possessions. The Trojans had the ball with 30 seconds left, down one, but Hailey Tarbox forced a turnover that allowed the Spartans to seal it.
“It’s tough when you see it happening in the first half like it was going,” Sanford Coach Rossie Kearson said. “But like I tell the girls, they’re going to make a run. We just have to make the last run.”
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