Batavia nips Hampshire

Liza Fruendt could only watch in horror.

The Batavia sophomore guard had been outstanding all evening against Hampshire, only to see the Whips have one final shot at the buzzer of third-round pool play at the Oswego Holiday Classic on Thursday night.

In what came to encapsulate the night for the Whips, however, the last-second shot from point-blank range hung momentarily on the rim before falling harmlessly to the floor.

The Bulldogs’ girls basketball team escaped with a 48-47 victory.

“Someone was watching over us,” Fruendt said.

Batavia (6-7) will play Larkin in the seventh-place game on Saturday afternoon; the Whips (4-8) face Rosary for third place.

Fruendt played a pivotal role for Batavia down the stretch, twice tying the game in the final four minutes with buckets.

The Bulldogs’ two-year starter swiped 7 Hampshire passes during the contest, and her driving basket in traffic gave Batavia a 45-43 lead with 2:05 to play.

“I was focusing on playing good defense,” said Fruendt, who had a team-high 16 points. “I just tried to go hard to the bucket (on the final field goal).”

But Hampshire was far from finished — or Fruendt, for that matter.

Jennifer Dumoulin (13 points) tied the game at 45-45 on a second-chance field goal with 64 seconds remaining.

Fruendt, though, found Katie Ryan, the Bulldogs’ junior post who finished with 13 points, for an inside score 21 seconds later to give Batavia a 47-45 cushion.

Batavia had a stop on the ensuing possession, but a missed front end of a bonus free throw enabled Hampshire to tie the score once again as Michelle Dumoulin had the last of game-high 17 points with a pair at the line with 16.2 seconds to play.

Sami Villarreal gave the Bulldogs their chance by converting a free throw with 7.7 seconds left after being inexplicably fouled 25 feet from the basket.

“Lazy on defense,” Hampshire coach Ed Hougens sighed.

The final possession only brought home the fickle nature of the sport as the Whips’ twin misses in the paint upped their total in the game to more than a dozen.

“This is probably one of the worst games we have played all year in terms of focus and concentration,” Hougens said. “If we make one of those (missed layups) we win the game.”

It was a particularly tough defeat for Michelle Dumoulin, who augmented her game-high point total with 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

“We didn’t take care of the ball well enough,” she said. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have (made my final shot attempt). I let the girls down.”

“(Fruendt) did a nice job early in the game of letting the game come to her,” first-year Batavia coach Kevin Jensen said. “When it’s time for (Fruendt) to take over, she takes over.”