Mesa Sports Memory: Women's basketball overcomes 15 point fourth quarter deficit

The Lady Thunderbirds of the women's basketball team had a tall task at hand on Jan. 18, 2023 as they hosted the Cochise Apaches.

The Division I Apaches came in with a 15-2 overall record and an 8-1 conference mark. The Division II Thunderbirds came into the game with a 13-3 overall record with a 8-1 mark against ACCAC opponents.

The start of the game did not go to plan for MCC as they would fall behind 11-0 to start the game and would not score their first point until the 4:58 mark in the first quarter. MCC trailed after the first quarter 12-21.

The second quarter was a bit more favorable for Mesa as they were only outscored by one point, 15-14 but they were able to take six more shots than Cochise however they still shot at a lower clip for the quarter.

Going into the halftime break MCC trailed Cochise College, 36-26. The third quarter would be similar to the previous two as MCC had their worst shooting quarter of the game as they went 4-17 (23.5%) compared to CC who went 6-12 (50%). The Lady T-Birds found themselves in a 15 point hole going into the final period.

That is where MCC would turn the tide in their favor as they made 10 baskets compared to the Apaches 4 and outscored them 28-13 to force overtime. Getting to that point was anything but easy as MCC trailed by six points with 58 seconds left.

Mackenzie Shivers was able to hit an and-one layup with 39 seconds left to cut the deficit to just two. Nia Boston attempted to tie the game with a mid range jumper, but after it fell off the rim and was grabbed by a Cochise player, it seemed the Thunderbird comeback had fallen short. That was true until the Cochise player who skied for the rebound shuffled her feet and was called for a travel.

With possession in their favor, head coach Kori Stephenson called a timeout to draw up a play for her team. Coming out of the timeout MCC went to one of their best shooters, Annemarie Batista who threw up a shot just past the lower block which missed the rim entirely but fell right into the waiting hands of Mykah Anderson who put it back up and in over the six-foot-five-inch defender to tie the game with 0.7 seconds remaining.

Overtime was a back and forth battle between the two teams. With seven seconds left and the game tied at 75, Boston was fouled. She would make the first free throw but miss the second giving the Apaches a chance to take the lead.

After preventing Cochise from taking the lead on the ensuing possession, Batista was fouled and made both free throws to give them a three-point lead with just four seconds left. Cochise was able to get a clean three pointer off to tie the game but it would bounce off the rim, sealing the largest fourth quarter comeback in MCC women's basketball history.

To take a closer look at the box score of the game, CLICK HERE.