Agganis South women storm back late, win over North in overtime

LYNN – The stars were out at the Paul F. Cavanagh Field House on Monday as the 6th annual Agganis All-Star Women’s Basketball Classic proved to be the most dramatic in its short history.Trailing by 11 with 95 seconds left in the second half, the South all-stars staged a dramatic comeback to tie the game at 77 after regulation before outscoring the North, 10-5, in overtime to take an 87-82 win.Click here for a photo gallery.”When you’re down by whatever we were with 90 seconds left, you know that playing half-court defense isn’t going to cut it,” South and Lynn Classical coach Tom Sawyer said. “We wanted to give the kids a chance to win, so we used timeouts to help set our defense and it paid off.”The South trailed 32-25 at the half before charging back to take the lead early in the second half. From there, the two teams were locked in a hammer and tong duel until the 8:00 mark when the North looked to pull away for good.The Pentucket connection of Erin McNamara and Ashley Viselli combined to net eight of 10 points during a 10-2 run over three minutes that pushed the lead to 68-60.English’s Jenicia Duggins, who led all scorers with 19 points, and Lawrence’s Yulissa Nunez stemmed the tide momentarily in cutting the lead back to three with 4:00 left. But the Westford Academy duo of Asia Ewing and Aly Boyle would net the next seven for the North to push the lead as high as 11 with 1:20 left.Duggins converted on a layup to cut the lead to nine. And when she scored again off a steal following a timeout, the South had a little life with 1:00 left.Rodriguez, who was her team’s MVP after a 16-point night, rattled home a three seconds later following another North turnover and suddenly the lead had been cut to four.”It really was a lot of fun,” Sawyer said. “The girls stepped up and made some big plays for us down the stretch.”The North turned the ball over once again on the next possession and Peabody’s Ginny Fleming converted to put the South in position to complete the astounding comeback. And the South did just that with 12 ticks remaining when Rodriguez hit a layup to tie the game at 77 and force overtime.In the extra session, the South took over. Duggins hit a layup to put her team in front with 3:00 left before Nunez and Fleming added free throws to extend the gap to five with 1:55 left.Ewing hit 1-of-2 from the line with 1:40 to go before Nunez buried a triple from the left corner to make it 85-78 and put the North down for the count.The finish was a lot like the start of the game as the South burst out to a 7-2 lead early. The North would then put together a staggering 17-0 run over the next six minutes, led by six points each from Ewing and Emily Winskowicz.The lead stayed at 11 for most of the first half before the South closed with the last four points to cut the lead to seven.