The Bowie Lady Rabbits got more than they bargained for when they traveled to Bellevue on Tuesday night.
The Lady Rabbits escaped with the win 44-40, taking the lead with less than a minute to go after trailing whole game.
Bowie came into the game confident. The larger 3A school was supposed to play Windthorst, but had to reschedule because the Lady Trojans volleyball team was playing in the state tournament.
Finding a last minute replacement, the Lady Rabbits thought they would have an easy game playing the 1A program down the road. Little did they know.
Bellevue had a couple of players out with injury to limit its depth a bit and a new coach in Celsey Hoffman, but the Lady Eagles were coming off of nearly beating a Nocona team the previous week. While the Lady Indians were missing four starters who were still in volleyball, it still showed this was not a 1A team to take lightly.
Bellevue came out fast showing tough defensive pressure despite giving up size at nearly every position. Within a few minutes the Lady Eagles had used that pressure to force turnovers and convert those steals into transition opportunities.
Also, the energy showed in other areas as Bellevue seemed to grab every loose ball and fought for offensive rebounds despite lacking in height compared to Bowie.
After a little more than four minutes into the game the Lady Eagles led 15-0. The Lady Rabbits had barely been able to set up their offense or attempt a shot against the pressure.
Bowie Coach Matthew Miller had to reset his shell-shocked team during multiple timeouts. The young ballhandlers was reminded how the team was going to break the press defense so it could set up its offense.
Bellevue led 19-4 after the first quarter, led by Mary Grace Broussard and Brittany Gill who each scored six points.
The Lady Rabbits settled down and made some good progress in the second quarter. Their defense switched between man-to-man and 1-3-1 to keep the Lady Eagles off balance. With them taking care of the ball better, there were less chances for Bellevue in transition and the Lady Eagles offense struggled to consistently find ways to score against Bowie’s length.
The Lady Rabbits offense found some success as well. Five different players made at least one basket and the team made two 3-pointers.
While the game was physical from the start, now that Bowie knew what type of game it was in the team responded back. It was not pretty and only enough fouls were called to make the game watchable, but individual foul trouble affected Bellevue harder than the Lady Rabbits in the second quarter.
The Lady Eagles still led heading into halftime, but Bowie had gotten it down to single digits trailing 25-19.
The third quarter was more even between the two teams as both had trouble consistently scoring baskets. Bellevue made three baskets and a couple of free throws to keep ahead.
The Lady Rabbits got a big lift from Lanie Moore, who knocked in all three of her 3-pointers in the quarter, scoring nine of the team’s 12 points.
Bowie still trailed, but had cut the lead down to one point earlier in the quarter and one basket 34-31 heading into the fourth quarter.
Bellevue grew the lead to 38-32 early in the final period. The Lady Rabbits struggled to get anything going offensively and trailed 40-34 midway through the quarter.
Bowie’s Kendall Fallis made a 3-pointer in transition to cut the lead to one basket 40-37.
The score stayed there for the next several minutes even as the Lady Eagles had two starters, Karis Denson and Mattie Broussard, foul out of the game.
With a little more than a minute left, the Lady Rabbits drew up and out of bounds play that got Laney Segura an open shot in the corner. Despite not having made a basket all game, she sunk the 3-pointer to tie the game at 40-40 with a minute still to play.
Bowie had been in a pressure defense for the second half of the fourth quarter to prevent Bellevue from passively running clock. Still in the defense, the team next stole the in-bounds pass and Railey Martin made the undefended layup to give the Lady Rabbits their first lead of the game 42-40 with 48 seconds left.
The Lady Eagles could not tie the score on their next offensive possession. Bowie would made two more free throws to make the final 44-40.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News. For more pictures from the game, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6870678&T=1