FARMINGTON -- Harrison (21-4, 10-1) made 19 free throws with nearly half (9-of-13) coming in the last two minutes to wrap up the 4A-1 girls basketball conference championship by beating Farmington, 55-46, at Cardinal Arena Friday.
Farmington (20-6, 9-3) seemingly couldn't throw the ball in the ocean at times, especially from 3-point range, which had been one of the Lady Cardinals' strong suits when the season began in November. The Lady Cardinals have been off target more often than not since the Christmas break. Senior Madisyn Pense missed a trio of 3-point attempts in the first quarter and went scoreless, but her teammates also struggled. This was not the senior night Farmington wanted.
The Lady Cardinals finished 6-of-24 from 3-point distance and only two players reached double figures, Makenna Vanzant with 15 and Trinity Johnson, who came off the bench on senior night, scored 13.
Despite the loss Farmington coach Brad Johnson saw some positive things Friday night, saying he though the kids competed
"I thought our kids played really, really hard. At times offensively we executed really, really well and that's kind of what we were talking about in there with them is all night long whether we were in our sets or we were in our motion we got looks that we wanted," Brad Johnson said. "Sometimes the game boils down to layups and free throws and we missed some high-percentage shots, things that are not indicative of our kids. They're pretty good about standing on that line and knocking shots down. They're good about making layups and things like that. We just didn't hit shots tonight."
Trinity Johnson gave Farmington a spark of life with consecutive 3-pointers that pulled Farmington within, 43-40 at the 4:22 mark of the fourth quarter. Harrison outscored the Lady Cardinals 13-5 down the stretch to pull away.
Harrison's Brylie Parker had 18 points to lead a trio of Lady Goblins in double figures, along with Caroline Cecil, 12; and Marion Groberg, 10.
"In the first half we turned it over a little bit. Our kids corrected a lot of that in the second half and we took care of the basketball," Brad Johnson said. "We were pretty efficient offensively, at times. Defensively, I thought they gave us a monster effort. Harrison scored 36 points on field goals. They scored 19 on free throws. Our kids really locked in. We out-rebounded them and that's one of the things going into the game we felt like that we had to do."
HARRISON 55, FARMINGTON 46
Harrison^14^9^13^19^--^55
Farmington^15^7^10^14^--^46
Harrison (21-4, 10-1): Brylie Parker 18, Caroline Cecil 12, Marion Groberg 10, K. Parker 6, Shrum 6, Oleson 3.
Farmington (20-6, 9-3): Makenna Vanzant 15, Trinity Johnson 13, Audrey Culpepper 5, Joelle Tidwell 5, Tori Kersey 4, Alexis Roach 4.
Farmington 66, Gentry 41
Farmington set up a showdown with Harrison in the regular season finale by beating Gentry, 66-41, on the road Tuesday, Feb. 5.
The win postured Farmington in a place to win the 4A-1 girls West Division and land a spot in the Regional tournament if they could also beat Harrison.
Sports on 02/13/2019