Karina Bystry and the McMinn Central Lady Chargers faced the York Lady Dragons in a TSSAA Class 2A state tournament quarterfinal at Murphy Center on Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The York girls won 66-63 in overtime. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — Shooters can just tell.
The split second a ball rolls off their fingertips, they can tell if their shots are short.
They can sense if they’re long.
So when Karina Bystry — one of East Tennessee’s top scorers — let her game-tying attempt fly in the final seconds of overtime against York Institute on Thursday morning, she instantly knew.
And while her instincts told her the shot might carry a bit too far, she’d hoped it would still fall somehow.
But it didn’t.
“I knew when I released it, there was a good chance it could go in,” she said. “But I felt it kind of going too far.”
The ball hit back iron, popped up straight in the air — perhaping offering some spot of hope it might drop back down and in — and then caromed over the front side of the rim, bringing an end to a classic of a Class 2A state quarterfinal at MTSU’s Murphy Center.
Bystry netted 23 points, and McMinn Central senior Molly Masingale 26, but York escaped with a 66-63 win in overtime.
After finishing state runner-up a season ago, McMinn Central had hopes of winning the program’s second state title this week. They had obliterated their postseason competition up until Thursday. But 35.8 percent shooting as opposed to York’s 62.2 percent likely was the difference.
“A missed layup here and a missed foul shot a little bit later and getting lost a couple of times on defense and giving up easy buckets, you know, in games like that, you can’t make those mistakes,” said McMinn Central coach Johnny Morgan, who just finished up his 46th season as head coach.
“It’s just sad one of those teams has to go home. That (game) could have easily been the finals.”
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Given how the first three quarters went Thursday morning in the day’s opener, McMinn Central (31-5) and York (27-5) were all set for a big finish. Two of the titans in Class 2A this season had scrapped for 24 minutes, with McMinn Central holding onto a 42-40 advantage.
Wofford signee Masingale hit two 3s in the opening minute of the quarter to give McMinn Central a 48-42 lead. That made her 6-for-7 from the 3-point line at that juncture, after having struggled from there in three state tournament games in 2023. She wound up 9-for-16 shooting Thursday with a 6-of-8 showing from deep.
Reese Beaty, a Clemson commit and junior guard, hit a jumper in the lane with 5:16 to go to cut York’s deficit to 50-49, giving the Miss Basketball finalist 22 points on the day. She finished with a game-high 33.
York eventually took the lead, 51-50, with a layup near the midpoint of the fourth. Beaty’s spinning move in the lane with 3:20 remaining put York ahead once again, 53-52. She added another mid-range jumper with 2:45 remaining to move York’s lead up to 55-52.
Bystry made two foul shots with 2:22 remaining to tie the contest at 55-all. And with the score at 57-all with 6.5 seconds left, Bystry stole York’s inbounds pass toward Beaty, thwarting York’s chance at any game-winning shot.
Overtime.
York led 63-61 in OT and had possession with 1:00 to go in OT, so Beaty began siphoning time off the clock with her dribble and forcing McMinn Central to foul. They did with 43.7 left and she went 1 of 2 at the line.
At the other end, Masingale maneuvered into the lane for a lefty layup with 26.9 left, trimming York’s lead to 64-63.
The Chargerettes couldn’t deny Beaty the ball on the inbounds. She made two foul shots with 20.7 seconds left to push the York advantage back to three.
With 11.5 seconds left, McMinn Central inbounded to Bystry. She jab-step faked her defender three times, then dribbled over to the top of the key, stumbled, spun and when she regained her bearings, she saw she had an open look with 1.4 seconds left.
She shot her shot.
“It just sucks (it didn’t go in). I practice those shots all the time,” Bystry said.
York entered with a 13-game win streak. A season ago, it fell 44-42 in the state quarterfinal to eventual state champion Westview.
Beaty, the 5-foot-8 point guard, carried York in the first half Thursday against McMinn Central, tallying 13 points on 6-for-11 shooting. She entered averaging 16.8 points per game on a team with no seniors.
York all but erased McMinn Central’s 10-point halftime lead with a 7-0 run to start the third, and Beaty didn’t have to even score a point in that spurt.
But Beaty’s layup at the midpoint of the third knotted up the score at 37-all.
Masingale sank her fourth 3 — still without a miss — to regain the lead for the Chargerettes at the 2:06 mark of the quarter. They led 42-40 heading into the fourth.
McMinn Central big-play’d York in the first half en route to a 33-23 lead at the break, outscoring York 21-11 in the second quarter thanks to a four-point play from Bystry with 3:58 left. That gave the Chargerettes a 22-19 advantage.
Masingale’s layup in transition fell with 2:08 before the half and also drew a foul. While she missed the free throw, she later made amends with a 3-pointer some 34 seconds later for a 31-19 advantage.
Masingale went 3 of 3 from the perimeter in the first 16 minutes.
A year ago at state, she went a combined 4 of 17.
“It’s just rewarding, because I’ve put a lot of work in outside of games and in practice,” Masingale said. “I shoot before school and things like that.
“So it’s rewarding for me to hit those shots. I just do whatever I can to lead my team.”
5STAR PHOTOS powered by SmartBank: McMinn Central vs. York Institute (2024 Class 2A quarterfinal)