DURHAM – No. 1 Bow led 37-36 with 16 seconds left in the fourth.

No. 2 Kennett’s Kaylee McLellan drove to the basket, desperate to put up a shot to try to win the game for the Eagles (21-1). The clock struck 0.0, the red lights flashed on the backboard, Bow stormed the court to celebrate a championship.

But amidst all the chaos, there was a whistle. A shooting foul.

McLellan would have two free throws. One to tie; two to win. She sunk both. Kennett 38, Bow 37. No time on the clock.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can say,” Bow head coach Phil Davis said. “They gave everything they have. They had a tough first half. We didn’t play great right out of the shoot. Our offense wasn’t really clicking. We played some pretty good defense as we usually do. We kind of have the score right where we want the score when we win.

“There’s just not much you can say to them. They’re all very upset. They worked very hard. They deserve this one for the efforts they put in all year. I felt like our senior captains – Alex, Bella, Lyndsey – really played their hearts out. ... Unfortunately, the end result wasn’t what we were looking for.”

The Falcons (20-1) had clawed all the way back from a 10-point halftime deficit where they looked more out of sorts than they did at any point this season. Yet, an Alex Larrabee layup late in the third quarter gave Bow a 29-27 lead, punctuating a 14-0 run.

The last foul call most directly impacted the end result, but Bow also had missed opportunities earlier in the game. The Falcons missed six of their 13 free throws and shot just 2-of-9 from the field in the fourth quarter.

Bow senior Bella LaPerle led the Falcons with 15 points and six rebounds; Alex Larrabee had 13. MclLellan led the Eagles with 14, including the two to win it.

The fact the Falcons even took a lead as quickly after halftime as they did was a feat. Kennett had stifled them for 16 minutes, better than any team had all season. Bow’s defense rose to the challenge in the third, when it outscored the Eagles 16-6. After not using the full court press much in the first half, it came out in full force in the second.

“We wanted to save our legs for the exact situation that we ended up in, with our shots not falling,” Davis said. We didn’t really employ our full-court press right out of the gates, but boy, did it start to work in the second half. I think we held them to 13 second-half points. We did what we needed to do to get back into the game.”

But it ultimately wasn’t enough. Such is part of the high school athletic experience, though – learning how to handle adversity when things don’t go as expected. It’s a lesson Davis hopes this group takes as the Falcons move forward.

“Everything we did this year was as a group,” he said. “They truly are a cohesive unit. I hope they learn that through victory or adversity, you stick together. This isn’t anybody’s fault. This is the game of sports, whether that’s professional, college, high school, things like this happen, and I hope they just stick together through this adversity which they’re feeling right now. We as coaching staff are gonna try to do everything they can to make sure that everybody’s OK and moving on, onward and upward.”

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