In the closest game of district play so far, the Bowie Lady Rabbits on Tuesday pulled out a one point victory against Holliday in the final seconds in front of Bowie’s loudest home crowd they have played before all season.
Coming back from as many as 14 points down, the Lady Rabbits won 44-43 thanks to a made free throw from Aslyn Davis with 3.2 seconds left to play to improve to 4-0 in district play and an early look at first place.
That was the end of the game though. To start the game, the Lady Eagles came into the game with something to prove. Having lost the previous game to district favorite Nocona by the score of 61-35, Holliday came out swinging to start the game.
Quickly, Bowie’s zone defense was exploited as the Lady Eagles made two three-pointers and led 8-0 in the first two minutes. The Lady Rabbits switched to man-to-man that slowed Holliday’s offense down by limiting good looks from the perimeter.
Unfortunately, Bowie’s offense was struggling to create any goo shots against the Lady Eagles zone defense. Wanting to get the ball inside, but not able to, the Lady Rabbits ended up settling for a jump shots which is not their strength. Holliday led 12-5 heading into the second quarter.
It was more of the same in the second quarter. In every facet, Bowie was getting outplayed as the Lady Eagles lead grew. Some badly thrown steals led to easy points the other way for Holliday as the Lady Rabbits continued to struggle offensively.
It looked like the Lady Eagles were going to take a double digit 26-13 lead into halftime, but Bowie was able to score a couple quick baskets thanks to forcing steals with their press defense, something they had not been able to use since they could not score. The Lady Rabbits cut the lead under double digits, but still trailed 26-17 at halftime.
Needing a complete game turnaround not just on the court, but in energy, Bowie needed to come out of halftime and play with much more fire and passion then they played with in the first half, but early on it looked like more of the same.
Holliday made a three-pointer and scored another basket to go up 31-17 in the first minute of the third quarter. It looked like fans were about to see more of the same for another half as the Lady Rabbits let a game get away from them, but something happened.
The Lady Eagles had been sloppy with the ball all game, sometimes self inflicted, but they were the type of turnovers Bowie, who does not play too fast anyway, could take advantage of to score.
The press had been effective when they used it, but the Lady Rabbits needed to score to set it up and they never really got themselves going from using it in the first half.
Some sort of energy changed in Bowie as they executed offense to get shots they wanted to take and not settling.
They found leading scorer Hope Howard inside and when she finally got her hands on the ball, no one from Holliday could deny her from scoring. Held scoreless in the first half, Howard made up for lost time scoring a game high 13 points.
Another thing happened as the Lady Rabbits started to furiously crash the offensive glass as the Lady Eagles zone defense meant they had trouble boxing out Bowie. Some possessions for the Lady Rabbits had two, three, four shots. Then after scoring, Holliday would have to face a press defense that was playing with much more passion.
All of this led to Bowie cutting the lead to 34-30 heading into the fourth quarter with all the momentum they could want. It only took a little more than a minute to grab the lead. Midway through the fourth, the Lady Rabbits led 39-36, but the Lady Eagles would not go away. Out of a timeout, despite Coach Chuck Hall warning his team it was coming, Holliday hit a corner three-pointer to tie the game at 39-39.
From there it was on. The teams quickly traded baskets on their next two possessions as they scored from the post. Bowie took the lead on their next possession as Jayci Logan, who finished with 12 points, missed a mid-range shot but followed her shot and put on the offensive rebound to go up 43-41 with a little more than two minutes to go.
After playing defense, the Lady Rabbits were able to run a lot of time off the clock before the Lady Eagles fouled Davis. With a chance to make it a two score game, Davis missed the first free throw in the one and one scenario.
Holliday immediately pushed the ball and scored on a contested layup to tie the score 43-43 with 21 seconds left. Bowie was able to work the ball to Davis who put up a contested floater over a defender, who was called for a foul to send her to the free throw line for two shots with 3.2 seconds left, giving her a chance at redemption.
Davis missed the first shot off the back rim. With Davis’ last chance to get her team the win sans a miracle shot from the Lady Eagles, Davis swished the next free throw to give the Lady Rabbits a 44-43 lead. Holliday’s heave at the buzzer, taken just in front of the half court line from the right side, sailed wide to give Bowie the much needed win.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.