By LLOYD COMBS
for the Daily Telegraph
RICHMOND, Va. — Win or lose it was going to be a historic day for Clintwood.
As it turned out it was also a game for the ages. Kayla Mullins bucket inside with 1.8 seconds remaining lifted the Greenwave to a dramatic 52-50 win over Twin Valley in the VHSL 1A
championship game Wednesday at VCU's Siegel Center.
In its final game before closing its doors and merging with Haysi to form Ridgeview High School this fall Clintwood withstood a heroic comeback by Twin Valley, which trailed from the middle of the first quarter on until Lexy Vance capped an 8-1 run with a driving layup with 12 seconds remaining.
Ivvy Gulley drove the length of the floor and then missed a layup in traffic, but Mullins grabbed a deflected rebound, converted a frenzied putback and drew a foul.
She missed the free throw but Twin Valley had just 0.8 seconds left to do anything except miss a long desperation shot after getting the rebound and calling timeout.
"Once Ivvy got going I knew she was going to shoot it," said Mullins, who was anxious to redeem herself after missing two other free throws in the final 1:23. "She came in on the right side, so I just tried to get to where I thought it might come off.
"I didn't know how much time was on the clock and when I got it I couldn't even hardly see the basket. I just shot it up there."
"Luckily there at the end we decided not to take a timeout in transition, because that would let them set their defense, and we're good in transition," said Clintwood coach Donnie Frazier. "We did two things well. One is shoot the ball going toward the basket and try to draw contact and shoot it with enough time to get a tip-in and (Kayla) just happened to on the right side, just happened to be in the right place at the right time."
Mullins, who missed much of the second quarter in foul trouble, scored 16 of her game-high 21 points in the second half. Samantha Stanley hit five 3-pointers, including three big ones in the first half and scored 15 points. Gulley contributed 10 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
Vance finished with 15 points and freshman Kim Lester hit two clutch 3-pointers during the Twin Valley comeback and scored 11 points.
Hannah O'Quinn hauled in a game-high 11 rebounds.
The Panthers (22-9) lost to the Greenwave (27-2) in three previous meetings and only one of the games was close, so it switched its defense around a bit and kept the game within its reach to the end.
"The game plan was to keep Gulley from penetrating," an emotional Twin Valley coach Tommy Crigger said. "We slowed her down, we had a chance to win the ballgame, Kalya Mullins made a big shot after Lexy made a big shot.
"There's nothing I can say, because they did everything they could possibly do out there on the court. It wasn't like they didn't want to get that last rebound, it wasn't like they missed foul shots on purpose. They did everything they were supposed to do to win. Clintwood made one more play than we did."
The Panthers were 9-of-19 from the free throw line, but they also stymied the Greenwave at times with their 1-3-1 zone defense and managed to slow the tempo down.
"They played a 1-3-1 against us in the region final at Lebanon," Frazier explained. "This time they mixed it up a little bit where they were trying to chase the shooters through and teams have done this in the past.
"The only thing about teams slowing us down in the halfcourt set with Twin Valley is, if you try to press them to speed it up, they've got shooters all over the floor and if you're running and jumping and you leave one shooter open, that shooter will beat you every single time."
Lakin Keene hit the only Twin Valley 3 in the first three quarters. Then Lester energized the Panther crowd and her team with two long 3-pointers back-to-back just 16 seconds apart to trim a 49-42 deficit to 49-48 with 1:34 remaining.
"My girls played awesome, bottom line, they played awesome," said Crigger. "Kim came in pressuring the ball, Kately (Jackson), Lexy and Kara (Goodman) got a couple of rebounds and steals and Kim, a freshman, ice water.
"She stepped up big time. She knew what was on the line and she got us back in the game (and) gave us a shot."
Clintwood never trailed after taking a 6-5 lead midway through the opening period. The biggest Greenwave lead was 34-23 late in the third period when Goodman hit two free throws and Lester hit the first of her three overall 3s to make it a single-digit deficit again.
"It was a closer game than I liked after beating them by (30-some) points," said Frazier, who was all too aware of what happened last year when Wise County Central lost to Gate City three times and then beat them in the state finals. "We knew that if they played the way they were capable of playing that we'd be in a dogfight and that's what it turned out to be.
"We talked about last year where Gate City had beat Wise and we knew you got to show up and play the game. So we had talked about that and we discussed the scenarios where they would be able to play with us, and one of them was they would be able to hit some threes."
Frazier talked about wanting a storybook ending, to the season and the Clintwood program, which also won state titles in 1985 and 1989.
"It would have been nice to have a year to defend it, but it's a nice way to close it out too, for the town of Clintwood, for the school, for the fans who showed up for a Wednesday morning," he concluded. "We had a nice crowd here and we'd like to thank all those fans for supporting us. It's a great way to go out. On top, it's the only way to go out."

At Richmond
TWIN VALLEY (50)
Vance 6-14 3-7 15, Keene 2-5 0-2 6, Jackson 1-6 3-6 5, Goodman 2-5 3-4 7, O'Quinn 3-5 0-0 6, Lester 4-7 0-0 11, Meadows 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 18-42 9-19 50.
CLINTWOOD (52)
Mullins 6-18 8-13 21, Sam. Stanley 5-10 0-0 15, Stevens 0-3 0-0 0, I. Gulley 4-15 0-1 10, Fletcher 1-3 2-3 4, N. Gulley 0-1 0-0 0, Sab. Stanley 0-0 0-0 0, Counts 0-0 0-0 0, Phillips 1-1 0-1 2. Totals 17-51 10-18 52.
Twin Valley......................8 7 16 19 — 50
Clintwood.......................11 10 17 14 — 52
3-point goals-TV 5-12 (Lester 3-4, Keene 2-4, Jackson 0-3, Vance 0-1), C 8-20 (Sam. Stanley 5-9, I. Gulley 2-6,Mullins 1-5). Rebounds-TV 35 (O'Quinn 11), C 34 (I. Gulley 9), Total fouls-TV 16, C 16. Fouled out-none. Technicals-none.