FROSTBURG — Playoff games are an opportunity for unsung heroes to rise to the occasion, and Rylee Sheppard filled that role on Friday.
The Mountain Ridge forward scored 10 first-half points to power the fourth-seeded Miners to a halftime lead, and they held off a late surge to defeat fifth-seeded Fort Hill, 53-43, in the Class 1A West Region I quarterfinals on Friday night.
Mountain Ridge led by as many as 16 points early in the fourth quarter.
“Fort Hill came out and they were ready to play,” Mountain Ridge head coach Donny Carter said. “We knew coming out they were going to be tough. … Thankfully we prevailed.”
The victory was the third of the campaign for Mountain Ridge (14-8) over Fort Hill (11-11), as the Miners won both regular-season meetings, 47-35 on Feb. 5 and 56-34 on Jan. 2.
Sheppard led all scorers with 14 points, scoring all of them off the bench. The Miners’ reserves outscored Fort Hill, 20-0, with Allison Tringler adding six.
“That was a breakout game for Rylee,” Carter said. “I was really impressed. She scores, but she hasn’t ever scored like she has tonight. It was wonderful. We needed that.”
Mountain Ridge, which led 41-28 after three periods, notched a game-high 44-28 advantage early in the fourth quarter before Fort Hill answered with an 11-2 run to get within seven.
Lindsay Fleming got hot from 3-point land, hitting three triples in the second half, to finish with a game-high 13 points for Fort Hill.
“The past two games against Mountain Ridge, it was about the same score at that point in the game,” Fort Hill head coach Mike Allen said. “It went the other way where they were able to extend the lead to 22.
“The seniors stepped up and said, ‘We’re not going to quit.’ They played their butts off the entire game. … They’re just girls full of heart.”
However, Makayla Ziler broke a Mountain Ridge scoring drought with an interior bucket to get the Miners over the top.
Ziler finished with 12 points to join Sheppard and Kealana Pua’auli (12) in double figures for the Miners.
Caniyah Plummer and Addison Furstenberg scored 10 points each for Fort Hill, and Aubry Spangler added eight.
Fort Hill had difficulty breaking the Mountain Ridge press in the first quarter, resulting in double-digit turnovers in the period.
“We knew they were going to have a little trouble with it,” Carter said of the press. “We were really trying to slow them down with it.”
But the Miners didn’t put Fort Hill away, as its 14-7 edge after eight minutes was whittled to 16-15 early in the second period after an 8-2 Sentinel flurry.
Mountain Ridge ended well, however, scoring 10 of the final 14 points to enter the halftime locker room with a 26-19 lead.
“We came to play,” Allen said. “We were ready for their offenses. We played hard enough to win, we just didn’t execute early. We could’ve executed against their press a little better early, and that would’ve given us a better chance to win.”
Mountain Ridge advances to the region semifinals where it’ll head to top-ranked Southern (20-2) on Monday.
“We’ll have to change some things from the first two games, that’s for sure,” Carter said. “We’ll try to figure something out to maybe surprise them a little bit. Try to give them a game.”
Fort Hill finished just 2-18 a season ago but rebounded to notch a winning regular season and a .500 record.
“We handled businesses every single night when we were supposed to,” Allen said. “I’m just real proud of the grit and effort and heart, especially from the seniors.”