Payton Elmer drained a three-pointer and Anna Hoover added two baskets to lead Thousand Islands to a 54-52 triple overtime victory over Syracuse Academy of Science on Sunday at the Allyn Gym on the OCC campus.

Thousand Islands (18-2)has a bye into the state tournament regional on March 11 at Tompkins Cortland Community College in Dryden. The Vikings will play Section IV champion Watkins Glen.

Elmer finished with six points, both on three-point shots, giving her 23 for the season. The first came late in the first quarter and the second with 2:08 left in the third overtime session after she has missed on in the second extra session."I knew the it wasn't going in but it wasn't going to hurt," said Elmer. "When I had another chance and took it and made it. It's such an incredible feeling,I really to have any words to explain it."

"That's what she (Payton) does," said Thousand Islands coach Pete Pettit. "She's got a green light no matter what. She doesn't start for us a lot but she is our senior leader and she has confidence so I know that she could make that shot and she did."

Hoover finished with a team-high 23 points, four coming in the third overtime period and the last bucket, a put back shot, extended the Vikings lead to 53-47 with 1:05 left on the clock. "We knew they were taller so we really had to step it up," said Hoover. "We had to crash the boards and dig down low. We knew if we kept driving we would get them in foul trouble."

Thousand Islands nearly didn't see the third overtime session. The Vikings trailed SAS 46-45 with 4.6 seconds left in the period when Kennedy Amo missed one foul shot and made the other. SAS was assessed a technical foul when one of the players signaled for a time out and the team had none left. Madyson Amo converted on one of the two technical foul shots with 2.6 left on the clock to force the third overtime session.

"Hoover has gotten tougher for us every year and she is just a junior for us," said Pettit. "One thing she has worked on for us is her strength. She's done a lot of training and working hard on getting stronger. And with that she has gotten ore aggressive. When she sees the ball she goes and gets it. Her mom is my assistant coach and always yells to go get the all and that helps too."

Both teams shot under 50 percent from the foul line as both teams converted on just 14 of 31 shots from the charity stripe.

"We missed 20 something foul shots and I stopped counting after a while," said Pettit. "I've got a lot of young kids shooting those and one senior team so I knew that might be an issue and it might hurt us a bit.But the kids kept working hard, we were down a couple times in those overtimes, but we kept fighting. Syracuse Academy of Science is one great team and it was a battle in triple overtime and it could have gone either way."

Syracuse Academy of Science was led by Lyrik Jackson, Section III leading scorer, with a game-high 24 points, nine coming in the overtime sessions. Despite that Pettit credits the Vikings defense in the win. "I think our defense won it for us tonight," he said. "I think we were better on defense tonight than I thought we were going to be and I thought our man defense did an excellent job."

When the game finally ended an overjoyed Pettit ran across the court, held his arms in the air and let out a big yell of joy to the Thousand Islands fans in attendance. "I told my wife this morning that if we win this I am either going to cry or pass out or have no clue as to what I am going to do," he said. "I wasn't in control of myself, butat least I didn't pass out."

The undermanned Vikings, with only eight players, relied ondrinking a lot of water and the subs all got in the game early to give the starters a break. According to Pettit, "The kids are in shape. I only got eight kids and we run a lot in practice. This is how we have prepared all year."

Thousand Islands now has just five days to prepare for state regional play. "I'm giving the player Monday off and then those missed foul shots are what we are going to work on Tuesday," said Pettit.

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Payton Elmer and Anna Hoover lead Thousand Islands to Class C title in 3OT thriller - Syracuse.com