She needed to make both free throws to give her Arrows team a 3-point lead. She didn’t want to let her teammates down.
“I was so nervous, but I was thinking about my team,” she said. “I had to put them in. I had to do it.”
Moore hit both free throws and the Arrows held off Greenon down the stretch, earning a 56-53 non-conference victory on Wednesday night.
Arrows senior Emma Garber scored a game-high 18 points, while senior Gabrielle Russell added 14 points as Tecumseh improved to 10-4.
“It was a tough game, we knew it was going to be a tough game,” said Arrows coach Chasity Russell. “They’re a good team. It’s nice to come out on top.”
Knights senior Claire Henry had a team-high 14 points as Greenon saw its seven-game winning streak snapped, falling to 10-2 overall.
“We missed some shots at the end,” said Knights coach Nick Minnich. “That’s a great team, they’re well coached and they play hard. … We missed some shots. We’ll come back and get better tomorrow.”
The Arrows took a 18-14 lead on a 3-pointer by Gabby Russell early in the second quarter, but the Knights stormed back to grab a 29-27 halftime lead.
The Arrows led 40-27 after three quarters, but the Knights tied the game at 49 on a basket by sophomore Avery Minteer with three minutes remaining.
Tecumseh jumped back in front at 52-49 on a 3-pointer by Arrows freshman Sammy Russell. Greenon’s Henry responded with back-to-back buckets to give the Knights a 53-52 lead with a minute remaining.
On Tecumseh’s next possession, Moore grabbed up an offensive rebound and put it back in to give the Arrows the lead for good at 54-53.
“The only thing I was thinking about was getting the ball back into the basket,” Moore said. “I wanted my team to win so bad.”
The 5-foot-3 senior entered the game averaging 7.0 points and 3.8 rebounds for the Arrows.
“We count on her a lot to defend,” Chasity Russell said. “She’s fast and she’s tough and she can defend a lot of different sizes. That’s really what she does well for us. For her to hit those free throws, it was really big.”
It may not be the last time Tecumseh and Greenon see each other this season. Both teams will compete in the loaded Division II Dayton sectional that includes defending state champion Alter and several district qualifiers including Eaton, Trotwood-Madison and Waynesville.
The game will help Greenon prepare for the postseason, Minnich said.
“Now that we’re moving to D-II, we’ve got to play some teams like this, Oakwood, Waynesville — teams that will give us that push,” Minnich said. “The last couple years we played out of conference teams and won by 40, 50 and that doesn’t help us.”
All four of Tecumseh’s losses have come in non-conference games.
“It’s nice to beat quality teams and so far we’ve come up short on a few of those,” Chasity Russell said. “It was nice to first get a firsthand look at them because we may see them again in the tournament and second to come away and battle and get the win.”
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