Fayette wins on 3-point buzzer beater

Say this for the Fayette County girls: They don’t blink.

Pushed to the final seconds of their Class AAAA second-round game by Osborne, which tied the game on a Flo Brown basket with six seconds left, the Lady Tigers took no time — or a timeout, for that matter — considering what to do. Get the ball to Tessah Holt.

Holt, who has signed with Florida, raced the length of the floor off the in-bounds pass and nailed a running 3-pointer as time expired to lift Fayette to a 51-48 victory.

“I wasn’t going to call a timeout and call a play just to get her the ball anyway,” Fayette coach John Strickland said. “We’ve got a bunch of experienced players, and they know what to do.”

“I just did what I practice every morning,” said Holt, who finished with 14 points. “We need to pull it out a little earlier. No more close games.”

It was the second postseason buzzer-beater for Holt, who won a Region 5-AAAA tournament game with a last-second half-court shot two weeks ago.

For most of the game, Osborne (23-4) gave Fayette (29-0) all it could handle. Neither team led by more than four points until the midway point in the game, which saw eight lead changes and nine ties.

Fayette’s Anma Onyeuku scored nine of her team-high 15 points in the third period. Hanyard and Shay Jackson scored 18 each for Osborne.