Her Edward Little girls’ basketball team was playing for the final shot Tuesday, but a play didn’t materialize in the final moments of overtime. So with five seconds left, the EL junior guard made something happen.

She drove to the basket and drew the foul. She calmly sank the two free throws to lift the Red Eddies to a 44-42 win over Oxford Hills.

It was almost as if she’d done it before.

“It was kind of like my freshman year,” said Norcross, who beat the Vikings as a freshman with a game-winning free throw. “It was deja vu. The same thing happened my freshman year. I knew I had to do something. So I just drove to the rim.”

Oxford Hills faced a similar scenario late in regulation. After rallying to tie the game with seven straight points, the Vikings got the ball back and had the chance for the last shot. A travelling call nixed that opportunity with five seconds left.

“They got the last foul call, which I wasn’t happy with,” Oxford Hills coach Nate Pelletier said. “We had the ball at the end, and they called a travel on us. I’m not sure if it was a travel, but if we get a shot off, maybe we get a foul call. It’s one of those things where we’ve got to take care of the ball.”

The win gave EL (14-3) a perfect record on its home court. The Red Eddies varsity boys also finished unbeaten at home, making it the first time both EL squads didn’t lose a home game in a season.

“We’ve had four games that were close games at home, and we pulled them all out,” said EL coach Craig Jipson, whose team lost the close games on the road.

Freshman Emily Jacques finished with 14 points to lead EL. Kate Sawyer had nine and Brooke Reynolds added eight. The Vikings (11-6) got 12 from Crystal West and 10 from Abbie Eastman.

Neither team shot well from the perimeter for much of the game. So it was Jacques play in the post that sparked EL. She scored eight of her points in the third while adding an assists and some key blocks. EL built a 30-26 lead entering that fourth. That was after trailing at halftime.

Ashlee Arnold, who was battling an illness and didn’t start, hit a 3 to open the fourth. That made it 33-26. Norcross and Sawyer added baskets in the quarter to preserve the seven-point lead. After a Mikayla Morin basket on a press breaker, Eastman sank two free throws to cut the lead to 37-34. Then with 1:23 left, West tied it with a 3. Though EL had a pair of critical turnovers in the final minutes, the Vikings couldn’t take advantage.

“We could have easily lost the game by 15 when we got down by seven,” said Pelletier. “We battled back. Our defense picked up. We were more aggressive, and in the end, we gave ourselves a chance to win.”

It was back-and-forth in the overtime. Sawyer hit a jumper but Anna Winslow answered that. Then Arnold drilled a 3 with 1:39 left but Eastman countered that with her own with 52 seconds left. EL played for the last shot, and that gave Norcross her opportunity.

“I didn’t have one of my best games,” said Norcross, who finished with five points. “Coach (Chris) Cifelli told me to keep fighting, and that I’d hit a big shot down the road. He was right.”

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