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Photo by Andy Atkinson Comet Emily Wiley (43) muscles up between Silverton's Becky Hadley (25) and Tara Schmidgall. Crater survives Silverton rally Comets nab 49-44 win after big lead vanishes By GREG STILES CENTRAL POINT -- A couple of seniors who rarely grab the spotlight kept the Crater Comets' season alive Thursday night. Crater blew a 17-point lead before Amanda Johnson and Amy Chase reversed the trend as the Comets pulled out a 49-44 victory over visiting Silverton in the second round of the Class 4A state girls basketball playoffs. Johnson sank a pair of free throws to break a 39-all tie and then Chase buried a 3-pointer from the right wing to give the Comets a 44-39 lead with 3:06 to play. "That decided the game," said Crater coach David Heard. "There's a huge difference with that five-point lead. They can't get the ball and tie it (on the next possession)." The victory sends the Comets (15-9) to No. 7 Lakeridge for a third-round game Saturday with. The winner advances to next week's state tournament in Portland. "We had an opportunity to blow them out and we didn't take advantage," said Heard, whose team led 25-8 with 3:40 left in the second quarter. "Against a good team, you've got to take advantage. We didn't and it came back to get us." But not fatally. Crater's Sarah Yager (13) eludes Jennifer Bingham. The Silver Foxes (19-6), who finished third in the Pacific-8 Conference, rallied to within 37-31 after three quarters. Then outscored the Comets 8-2 to pull even on Jennifer Bingham's bucket from just beyond the foul line. That's when Johnson and Chase -- both off the bench -- turned things around. "Coach Heard kept reminding us of what our goals were and told us someone had to take a stand," Chase said. "We had to play tough defense at the end." The Comets outscored the Foxes 10-5 in the final 3 1/2 minutes and nailed seven of eight free throws in that span. For the game, Crater was 13 of 20 at the charity stripe, while Silverton was 3-of-12. "The more I look at it, the more lucky I feel," said Heard. "They made 18-of-20 free throws Tuesday night (in a 47-37 victory over Redmond)." Posts Emily Wiley and Jodi McLeod, who sparked Crater's charge to third place in the Southern Oregon Conference, were neutralized by Silverton's trio of Becky Hadley, Serenity Ragone and Erin Whittemore. "They were strong post players and used their elbows real well," Wiley said. "Toward the end, we had to play our tails off and at least stop them for a second or two." But Wiley converted three free throws in the final 55 seconds and freshman point guard Sarah Yager hit two more to seal the victory. Both finished with eight points to lead the team. "We had a big lead, let down and they came back," Wiley said. "We got scared. Coach told us there was a lot of terror in our eyes during one of our huddles and that we were not going to win this game like that. We went back and played as hard as we could." Crater hounded the Foxes for the first 12 minutes, nearly putting the contest away by halftime. A free throw by Johnson, a 3-pointer by Yager and a layup by McLeod off an assist from Johnson gave Crater a 12-4 advantage after six minutes. Another Yager trey made it 17-8 at the end of the quarter. The Comets then scored the first eight points of the second quarter. Crater outrebounded Silverton 30-21, but the Foxes nabbed 11 offensive rebounds and used putbacks to work their way back into the game. They converted three straight second-chance opportunities to whittle the deficit to 25-14 at halftime. "Our post kids played well all year and did a nice job again tonight," Silverton coach Tom Steers said. "The only thing for us is that sometimes we get so pumped up we can't handle the ball and we can't shoot. That was obvious in the first quarter. "In the second half, our adrenalin was gone, we played hard and good things started happening." Sophomore wing Jennifer Bingham, who hit two 3s in the third quarter, came off the bench to lead all scorers with 14 points for Silverton. "Their posts matched up against us better than anybody in our league and their guards were solid," Heard said. "They only had 10 turnovers." The good news is that Silverton beat Lakeridge, the Three Rivers League runner-up, 52-50 in overtime, in December. The bad news for the Comets is that after losing senior forward Megan Robbins with an ACL knee injury the final game of the regular season against Ashland, senior forward Becky Arreola sustained a hip pointer and is doubtful for Saturday's game. SILVERTON (44) -- Fennimore 5, Gardner 0, Bingham 14, K. Church 6, A. Schmidgall 0, Whittemore 6, Hadley 6, Ragone 0, T. Schmidgall 6. Totals: 19-52 3-12 44. CRATER (49) -- Yager 8, Chase 3, Hemphill 6, Sapienza 0, Durbin 0, McLeod 7, Wiersma 5, Wiley 8, Johnson 7, Arreola 5. Totals: 15-37 13-20 49. Silverton .............8 6 17 13 -- 44 Crater ...............17 8 12 12 -- 49 3-point goals -- Silverton 3-10 (Fennimore 1, Bingham 2) Crater 6-15 (Yager 2, Wiersma 1, Hemphill 2, Chase 1). Fouled out -- Hadley. Today's Sports Index Mail Tribune Copyright� The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, OR U.S.A.