South Pointe girls lose heartbreaker to Riverside in state quarterfinals, 63-61

South Pointe rallied late before falling to Riverside 63-61 in the quarterfinals of the 4A Girls Basketball State Tournament Wednesday night.

The game was tight in the first half and the two teams went into halftime knotted at 33.

The third quarter saw Riverside build some momentum. The Warriors opened the second half with a 9-0 run, which sparked a 18-10 quarter that saw them take a 51-43 into the fourth quarter, their largest lead of the night.

However, South Pointe wasn’t going to go down so easily.

The Stallions opened the final quarter with a 13-5 run to tie the game at 56 with four minutes left on the clock.

In the final minute of the game, the Stallions trailed by only one with a chance to take a lead, but a missed 3-pointer and a turnover on back-to-back possessions dashed their hope of making the state semifinals.

Riverside knocked down one more free throw and intentionally missed the second, and with South Pointe out of timeouts, it wasn’t able to get the ball down the court in time for a shot.

South Pointe senior forward Victoria “Starr“ Morris finished the game with 27 points.

Despite the game being such a hard-fought contest, the game was marred, at least in South Pointe’s eyes, by a number of questionable calls made against the visiting Stallions.

Many of the South Pointe fans who traveled to Riverside took exception with the officiating, and a lot of that emotion was still tangible when the final buzzer sounded.

“When you have to travel and play in a hostile environment, I feel like there was a lot of things that we could’ve done better, but I’m terribly disappointed that there were a lot of what felt like questionable calls,” South Pointe head coach Stephanie Butler-Graham said. “I don’t like to say that, but I just questioned a lot of things and how it could go that way. When the kids are playing as hard as they can play, and you got some officials that seem to be a little partial.”

“For that, I’m incredibly disappointed,” Butler-Graham continued. “Our kids fought all the way back and had a great season. This is not what we prepared for at all. Hats off to Riverside, they played a solid game, and we didn’t capitalize on some things that we capitalize on. Just got to figure some things out, go at it again next year.”

South Pointe finishes the season at 26-3.

Other state quarterfinal scores

(Girls) Andrew Jackson 70, Woodland 46; Feb. 20

This story was originally published February 21, 2024 at 9:39 PM.