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Grizzlies pull it out By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings The team that couldn't catch a break made its own and saved its season in the process. Ashland High senior guard Bryan Clevenger swished a 24-foot 3-pointer with 7.3 seconds left and Eagle Point senior forward Mike Bergseng missed a desperation shot from about the same distance as time expired Friday night, giving the Grizzlies a 49-48 Southern Oregon Conference win at a packed Mountain Avenue gym. With their slim playoff hopes hanging in the balance, the Grizzlies held the Eagles to two field goals in the fourth quarter and deflected two passes in the final 2.1 seconds to pick up their second league win of the season and first at home since a win over Eagle Point last year. The Grizzlies celebrate their last-second victory. Ashland Daily Tidings/CHRIS MILLER "When it left my hand I was thinking maybe it was a little long, but I could tell it was right on line," Clevenger said. "Fortunately it went down. It was unbelievable. Talking about finally getting the monkey off our back. We've had so many close games at home that we've lost, it feels good just to finally get one for our fans. They've been so loyal." Ashland improved to 9-8 overall and 2-5 in the SOC, while Eagle Point fell to 0-7 in league play. The Grizzlies are in a three-way tie with Crater and Roseburg for fifth place in the SOC standings, two games behind fourth-place Klamath Union (4-3). Clevenger's game-winner capped off an otherwise off night for the Grizz scoring leader. He scored nine of his 12 points in the third but made just 5 of 20 shots, including 2 of 10 from beyond the arc. Senior guard Nick Palmesano paced Ashland with 15 points (on 7 of 13 shooting), five rebounds and two steals, senior post Clint Bryan added 10 points, five boards and five steals and senior guard Chris Presicci had nine points, two blocks and a steal. Junior guard Junior Malgarejo scored a team-high 16 points for Eagle Point, which also got 10 points from its leading scorer, senior guard Tim Martinen. Malgarejo swished a wide-open trey from the top of the key with 30 seconds left to give the Eagles a 48-46 lead. Going without a timeout, Ashland then ran its motion offense until Bryan drew a crowd on a drive and dished out to Clevenger. The 6-1 shooter didn't hesitate and the roar of the crowd was so loud after the shot sailed through that Grizzly players couldn't hear the referee's whistle signaling an Eagle Point timeout and continued to play defense. "I couldn't hear much after that," Clevenger said. "I knew if I got a look I wasn't going to pass it up, I wouldn't be able to sleep with that." Added Bryan, who picked up the assist on the play: "We run a drill in practice called split the post � Normally I pass the ball to Clev and he's money in the drill, so I figured I'd just give it to him again and he hit it." The Grizzlies had three fouls to give on the ensuing possession and used them all - one with 6.3 seconds left, another with 4 seconds left and their last one with 2.1 to go. After two more resets following deflections by Ashland sophomore guard Jeff Skinner, who grabbed a team-high 10 boards, and Presicci, Eagle Point inbounded for the last time with just half a second to go. Eagle Point 6-6 senior forward Brandon Anderson passed from the right sideline to Bergseng five feet behind the top of the key and Bergseng, a 6-3, 230-pound post player, missed off the right side of the rim. "It's just great to finally get a win here for our fans, our families and for us," Palmesano said. The Ashland student fan section exploded onto the court as the final horn sounded and engulfed the team. Bergseng's miss was one of nine in the quarter for the Eagles, who were held to 35 percent (18-for-52) shooting. The win ended a string of narrow losses for the Grizzlies and reversed a trend of late-game meltdowns and/or disastrous breaks. Against Marshfield Dec. 13, the Grizzlies lost on a 30-foot buzzer-beater; against Crater last week, Ashland erased a 21-point deficit and took the lead, only to falter in the final seconds; and against North Medford on Tuesday, Black Tornado guard Beau Hovland, a role player who averaged less than 11 points per game, exploded for 28 points while making 7 of 12 3-pointers to help North pull out a 59-55 win. When Clevenger's shot broke that streak, Grizz coach Rick Cornelius was speechless. "The crowd went crazy and I sort of looked at it and thought, 'I'll be darned,'" he said. "The fact that they found a way to win speaks volumes, it really does. That last defensive stand was most impressive. I thought the kids defensively in the last four minutes of that fourth quarter, they did some things that I know they're capable of doing, and that's defending anybody. When it's imperative, they can defend." It looked like Ashland would take chance out of the equation early this time, as the Grizzlies ran out to a big early lead. Palmesano's lay-in early in the second quarter gave Ashland a 27-13 lead, its biggest of the game, but the Grizzlies didn't score again until the third quarter, while Eagle Point ran off 14 straight to tie it up. After Clevenger scored on a fastbreak lay-up to give Ashland a 33-30 lead, Eagle Point scored nine straight - four on rebound put-backs - to take a 39-33 lead. Just as a collective "here we go again" sigh reverberated through the pro-Ashland crowd, Clevenger came right back with a 3 of his own. Eagle Point led 43-38 entering the fourth quarter, but Ashland scored the first eight points of the quarter on inside buckets by four different players to go up 46-43 with 4:47 to go. Bergseng's rebound put-back with 4:20 left cut the Ashland lead to one and nobody scored again until Malgarejo's 3 with 30 seconds left gave the Eagles back the lead. Clevenger's shot came right in front of the Grizz bench and capped off an 11-5 fourth quarter scoring advantage for the Grizzlies. "It feels so much better to win than to come in here with a moral victory," Bryan said from a jubilant Grizzly postgame locker room. "We were just getting tired of that as a team and the seniors, it's our last year, we just want to go out and get as many wins as possible, go to the playoffs. Anything's possible in the SOC this year." Added Clevenger: "We were in pretty much every game the first half of the year, so if we just have a couple close games go our way, you never know. We might be able to sneak into the backside of the playoffs." 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