OKLAHOMA CITY – Down one with seven-tenths of a second remaining, St. Mary's Hannah Wilson nailed a 15-foot hook shot to give the Rattlers at 71-70 victory at Oklahoma Christian on Friday afternoon.
Wilson, a senior forward from Fredericksburg, Texas, played a limited amount of minutes due to foul trouble but made the most of it, scoring a career-high 23 points and a game-high 13 rebounds in 27 minutes.
Three other Rattlers (6-7, 6-7 Lone Star Conference) scored in double figures as sophomore guard/forward Tonia Bilic (Zagreb, Croatia) totaled a career-high 17 and both sophomore guard Briley Perkins (Houston) and senior guard Mya Culiver (Rockwall, Texas) chipped in 10 each.
Sophomore forward Natalia Ryng (Gdynia, Poland) just missed out on recording a double-double, scoring nine points and pulling down 10 rebounds. Culiver led the team with five assists and five steals.
The double-double for Wilson is her sixth-straight and seventh of the year and she's posted career-highs in scoring in back-to-back games after scoring 22 on Wednesday at St. Edward's.
The Eagles (6-7, 6-6 Lone Star) were led by Maddison Collyer with 25 points and seven assists, while Brooklin Bain brought down 11 rebounds.
The seniors picked up where they left off on Wednesday, scoring 10 of the Rattlers' 12 points in the first quarter as Culiver scored six and Wilson added four.
The second quarter was all Eagles as they outscored the Rattlers 26-12 to take a 35-24 lead into the locker room.
Midway through the third quarter after the teams had gone back-and-forth, the Rattlers scored nine of 11 to cut the deficit to two, 39-37 with 4:59 on the clock, but the Eagles pushed their lead back to 11, 52-41 with 1:16 left and ended the stanza up 55-43.
Trailing 58-46 with 9:32 to go, the Rattlers used a 12-0 run to knot the score at 58-58 with Wilson scoring seven straight points. OC scored the next four as the teams traded points. With 2.1 ticks on the clock, Collyer drained a pair of free throws for the 70-69 lead. The Rattlers took a timeout to advance the ball. On the initial inbounds, it was tipped out-of-bounds by an Eagle, setting up the inbounds play with 0.7 left, which Ryng passed perfectly to Wilson for the win. Wilson scored 12 points, grabbed nine rebounds and had a blocked shot in the final quarter.
The two teams meet again on Saturday at 1 p.m. for the final game of the regular season.
INDIVIDUAL PLAYER & TEAM NOTES
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For the second consecutive game, senior forward Hannah Wilson has posted a career-high in scoring, leading the Rattlers with 23 points. She also had her sixth-straight double-double, adding 13 rebounds.
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In just her second start, sophomore Tonia Bilic scored a career-best 17 points, including six straight for the Rattlers in the final minute of the game to give the Rattlers the chance at victory.
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For the sixth-straight contest, Briley Perkins hit multiple three-pointers, going 2-for-6 from beyond the arc – and both were in the fourth quarter.
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The Rattlers have won five of the last six contests and evened their road record at 4-4 in 2020-2021.
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St. Mary's shot 57.1 percent from the field in the second half, including 61.1 percent in the fourth quarter. It is just the second half this season the Rattlers have topped 50 percent in 20 minutes of play.
