Clutch free throws deliver Hutchinson women’s basketball its first NJCAA national title
Nothing could have prepared Hailey Jackson for the kind of pressure she faced on Monday evening in Casper, Wyoming.
With Hutchinson Community College trailing by three points in the NJCAA Division I national championship game, the freshman from Tulsa was fouled beyond the arc by Northwest Florida State with 0.7 seconds remaining.
Three shots, from 15 feet away, to determine if a perfect season continued or ended, if a national title was within reach or unattainable, if a dream would be realized or lost.
“I actually have no idea how I kept calm in my head,” Jackson said. “I just kept thinking, ‘We need all three of these. Just breathe.’ And I thought about all of the girls on the team and how hard we’ve worked this season just to get to this point. But I was nervous.”
Jackson was a 70% foul shooter on the season, but had just gone 1 of 6 from the line in the previous game. That’s why she spent time working on free throws during the halftime warmup session, instead of shooting on the perimeter like she normally does, in Monday’s game.
The practice paid off, as Jackson used the same routine — two dribbles, a spin of the ball in her hands and a bend of the knees before releasing — to make all three free throws to force overtime.
For two straight minutes, she had bottled up her emotion in an attempt to remain calm enough to deliver in the moment. But by the time she sat down on the bench in between regulation and overtime, the emotion began to spill out with tears welling up in her eyes.
“I felt like there was a reason that we got put in that situation,” Jackson said. “There was a reason why I had to make those free throws.”
Overtime proved to be a contest of which team could regain its composure the fastest. Hutchinson won, controlling the extra period from the jump en route to an 88-80 victory over Northwest Florida State for the first national title in program history.
Hutchinson finished the season undefeated at 37-0.
“We just had kids who stepped up and made big-time plays in big-time moments,” Hutchinson coach John Ontjes said. “I told the girls before the game, ‘No matter what happens, win or lose, you represented our program the right way.’ This (title) means a lot to me and to the kids who came before them who helped build this program with a winning tradition.”
It was an emotional victory for Ontjes, considered by many as one of the premier JUCO coaches in the country after winning close to 89% of his games with the Blue Dragons the past 17 years. But a national championship had always eluded him. As a matter of fact, he had seen three undefeated seasons end with a heartbreaking loss in the title game.
There had to be a familiar sinking feeling for the coach as he watched his team’s 11-point lead dwindle away in the second half, as Northwest Florida State appeared to clinch the victory when Hutchinson was whistled for a travel with 3.9 seconds left.
But a chance for a miracle persisted when Northwest Florida State’s Celia Riviere missed her second free throw, allowing Hutchinson to call timeout with 2.1 seconds left, trailing by three points, and advance the ball past halfcourt.
During the final timeout, Ontjes designed the play to go to Kiki Smith in the right corner for the potential game-tying 3. The coach threw his hands up in frustration when Akaysha Muggeridge instead inbounded to Jackson, who Ontjes admitted might have been the last option on the play. The 5-foot-11 freshman forward was raked across the arm on her way up for a 3-point attempt that missed badly, but the foul was called.
“I was busy getting after our inbounder for throwing it to the wrong person,” Ontjes said with a laugh when asked what was going through his head after the foul call. “It was a little stressful, but that took my focus off whether she was going to make or miss.”
Not only did Jackson make all three free throws to send the game to overtime, but she scored two quick baskets in the extra period to give Hutchinson an immediate lead. Jackson finished with 25 points, the second-highest output of the season for her.
Smith, a Topeka native who was named tournament MVP, scored 23 points, while Monae Duffy (13 points, nine rebounds), Journey Armstead (11 points), Muggeridge (eight points, seven rebounds, four assists), Kahlen Norris, Bree Horyna and Madi Denison also helped the Blue Dragons to the championship victory.
But none were as clutch as Jackson, who will go down in Hutchinson history for her heroics.
“Those were some of the biggest free throws that I’ve ever been a part of,” Ontjes said. “It took a lot of courage for her to go to the line and knock down three free throws in a row.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2024 at 7:24 PM.
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