By MATT GOLDBERG
Herald-Whig Sports Writer
NORMAL -- Renita Bunte missed one 3-pointer on Friday.
But it was the biggest and perhaps the longest shot of the Quincy Notre Dame senior's career.
After making her first three treys, a desperation heave from a little less than half court hit the rim as the overtime buzzer sounded.
But the game shouldn't have even come to that shot. It could have been won easily from 15 feet out -- from the free-throw line.
QND only made 6 of 14 overtime free throws, one of the major reasons why the Lady Raiders are no long perfect after losing 76-73 to Chicago Marshall in the Class 3A semifinal game at Redbird Arena.
QND (32-1) faces Lombard Montini (27-6) at 11 a.m. today for third place.
As Bunte's shot fell harmlessly to the ground, QND's perfect season and state championship hopes also came crashing down.
"It felt good," Bunte said of her last-second shot. "I don't know. I knew it could have gone in. But it's just like any shot."
Free throws were the Lady Raiders' undoing. In addition to their overtime woes, they were 2 for 6 from the line in the final two minutes of regulation.
"We won the game on the free-throw line there Monday," QND coach Eric Orne said. "Today, unfortunately it became an issue there late."
In the first half, QND went 13 for 15 from the free-throw line and took a six-point lead into halftime. The rest of the game QND was 15 for 28.
"You're sitting there hoping," Orne said. "You're clenching your fist there, hoping they just start falling through."
They never did.
The Lady Raiders had their chances but couldn't hold any of the following leads: QND led 37-31 at halftime, 55-49 with 6:36 left in the fourth quarter, 60-55 with 3:45 left in regulation and 70-65 with 1:35 remaining in overtime.
"I don't really know if it has to do with pressure," said QND sophomore Karlee Gengenbacher, who missed two free throws with 10.6 seconds left in regulation and the game tied at 65. "I just think that we weren't concentrating on our free throws. That's what we needed. That's what got us (here). We missed those. We just have to stay strong. We kind of fell apart at the end."
In addition to missed free throws, second-chance points and turnovers also hurt the Lady Raiders. Marshall ended the game with 32 second-chance points compared to QND's seven, and the Lady Raiders had almost more than twice as many turnovers -- 29 to 15.
With 3:16 left in the opening quarter, QND was being outrebounded 9-2 and Marshall (25-7) scored 10 of its first 14 points off second-chance opportunities.
"We were letting them get some rebounds that they shouldn't have been getting," said Bunte, who finished with 17 points. "We weren't really boxing out. Just the little things that we usually do better at, we weren't doing at first. We knew we had to come back out and start doing all those things better."
Gengenbacher scored a career-high 25 points. Chloe Barnes added 15 points.
Barnes is one player that picked up the rebounding slack after the Lady Raiders began getting pushed around inside.
"We just realized that they were probably the most physical team that we played and they're gonna be really, really physical so we're going to need to combat that physicalness being aggressive by ourselves," Barnes said.
QND led by as many as 11 points in the third quarter, but a double-digit lead wasn't safe against Marshall. The Commandos cut the deficit to 50-47 to start the final quarter.
"Give Marshall a lot of credit," Orne said. "Did they ever give up? No. They had opportunity after opportunity and they made the most of it."
Marshall earned the win with its leading scorer, Adrienne GodBold, who finished with 25 points, sitting on the bench after fouling out with 30 seconds left in regulation.
"In the end, it was a testament to our fortitude," Marshall coach Dorothy Gaters said.
Sarah Rogers (15 points), Tatiana Walker (11 points) and Terranika Reynolds (12 points) all hit double figures in the win.
All three of those players are seniors.
"The kids didn't want to lose," Gaters said. "Our seniors stepped up very big for us."
-- mgoldberg@whig.com/221-3367
