The Tiverton basketball team fell to the Lincoln School 50-47 in a nail-biting, back and fourth Division-2 championship game at the Amica Mutual Pavilion on Thursday night.

The Tigers came back from a five-point deficit 37-34 and held leads of 42-41, 44-41, 47-46 in the fourth quarter, but each time the Lynx fought their way back to take the lead. Tiverton found themselves down three-points with four seconds to left to play in the game, Tiverton had to inbound the ball and get it to one of their 3-point specialists for a shot to tie it. Head coach Mike Brigham used a play to inbound the ball that the team has worked on all season, but never used-till now. Tori Murray standing behind the Lynx baseline threw to Brooke Sowa on the other side of the basket and she flung a long Drake Maye-like pass to teammate Sara Poland, who launched a 3-pointer to tie the game. Poland’s rushed-shot clanged off the rim as time ran out. The Lincoln School had won.

“I’m proud of Sarah and that she tried to make that shot,” said senior co-captain Jah’niece Branch. “It hurts and it stings and it’s going to hurt tomorrow, cause I know we should have won. My teammates kept on digging and playing hard and they never quit and I’m proud of everyone of them.”

The Teary Tigers hugged each other in a circle at center court. Branch, who led all scorers with 16 points, consoled her teammates and mentioned that there is more work to be done as the second place Tigers still have the state tournament to play.

“We knew it was going to be a hard game,” said junior forward Sara Poland. “But we did our absolute best. That's all we can ask for.”

“It was a tough one,” Coach Brigham said. “We made some mistakes at the end.”

Branch, the Tigers’ senior center, had one her best games of the season. She scored eight points from the paint in the fourth quarter. She rebounded and blocked shots so well, that the Lynx changed their game plan and began to shoot from outside in the third quarter. It worked as they erased a ten point Tiverton lead.

First quarter jitters

Both teams had trouble scoring a point for the first five minutes of the game. The Lincoln School led 5-4 after the first quarter, but Tiverton found their groove and led 20-11 after the first half. The Lynx outscored the Tigers 16-10 in the third quarter and cut the lead to 30-27.

Fourth quarter double steal

In the fourth quarter, Tiverton held a 47-46 lead with under a minute to play in the game. The Lincoln School had the ball and dribbled up court. The Tigers stole the ball and had a chance to take valuable seconds off the clock. Murray grabbed it, however, and immediately dribbled up court and looked to drive to the basket, but Lynx guard Alivia Harris caught her, poked the ball away and stole it right back.

“We talked about that during our timeout,” said Coach Brigham. “We wanted to get the ball and slow it down. Let them make the mistake. We have the lead and it's not about scoring, it's about winning and it's sometimes tough to get that across especially in the heat of the game.”

Still Coach Brigham thought the team played well, especially defensively.

“We lost by 22 points the last time we played them.” he said. “Their captain, Reign Whiteing, really dominated us that game and we worked on defending her the past few practices. Jah’niece likes to block shots and she did a great job on her this game.”

Tiverton scoring: Branch led the team with 16 points. Junior forward Sara Poland sank a pair of 3-pointers and scored 11 points, as did Cami Oliviera and Murray, who both netted eight points. Tessa Purcell added four points and also helped out under the basket and took over for Bea Pimentel when she got into foul trouble in the second half.

Next up: Ninth seeded Tiverton plays eighth seeded Lincoln School in Providence next Tuesday night. Time is TBD.