By John RittenhouseFulda ended Hills-Beaver Creek’s bid to repeat as champion of the South Section 3A Girls Basketball Tournament by besting the Patriots 58-51 in a semifinal-round game played in Worthington Friday.H-BC trailed by two points with 2:27 left to play, but Fulda’s Abby Oakland drained four consecutive free throws in the final 40 seconds of the game to seal a seven-point win for the Raiders.The win sent top-seeded Fulda to Marshall Tuesday, where it played Southwest Christian in the tournament’s championship game. The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for the fifth-seeded Patriots, who end the season with a 17-9 record."It would have been nice to get the lead at some point in the fourth quarter," said Patriot coach Tom Goehle, who guided a team that sported a 5-6 record before Christmas to a 12-3 finish this year."If we could have taken the lead, it might have changed the complexion of the game. We were one play away from getting a lead a lot of times. Give Fulda credit. Every time we made a run, they had an answer."Fulda proved its grit by answering every challenge H-BC offered in the fourth quarter.H-BC trailed by one (41-40) when Kerri Fransman drained a three-point shot at the 7:08 mark of the final stanza, but the Raiders countered with a 10-5 spurt to open a 51-45 lead. H-BC’s Brittney Rozeboom drained a free throw with 2:27 remaining to bring the Patriots within two points of the Raiders at 51-49. With Oakland leading the way, Fulda outscored the Patriots 7-2 the rest of the game."She’s a great player," Goehle said of Oakland. "She wanted the ball in her hands at the end of the game and made the big shots."To H-BC’s credit, the Patriots were in the game from beginning to end.Fulda scored the first four points of the contest only to have H-BC close within one point (6-5) when Rozeboom converted a field goal with 2:13 left in the first period. The Raiders led 11-7 entering the second quarter, when H-BC put together a 7-3 spurt capped by Kelly Mulder’s field goal at 4:49 that gave the Patriots their first lead at 16-14. Fulda regained the lead with a 12-3 run that gave it a 26-19 cushion at the intermission.Fulda led by eight points (38-30) with 2:05 remaining in the third period before H-BC reeled off seven straight points (the last two coming on a field goal from Kari Roozenboom with 18 seconds left) to trim the difference to one point at 38-37. The Raiders capped the scoring in the third quarter with one free throw.According to Goehle, Fulda’s play on defense proved to be the difference in the game."They were looking to shut down our penetration and they did a pretty good job of it. Our guards like to penetrate, but they shut that down and made us work hard for everything we got offensively," he said.Fransman and Rozeboom led the Patriots in scoring with 14 and 11 points respectively. Mulder led H-BC with seven rebounds and three blocked shots. Cassi Tilstra and Melinda Feucht recorded three assists each.Box scoreRozeboom 1 2 3-4 11, Fransman 1 4 0-0 14, Bush 0 0 0-0 0, Feucht 3 1 0-0 9, Fink 1 0 0-0 2, Tilstra 3 0 1-2 7, Roozenboom 1 0 0-0 2, Mulder 3 0 0-0 6.Team statisticsH-BC: 20 of 57 field goals (35 percent), four of six free throws (67 percent), 23 rebounds, six turnovers.Fulda: 21 of 54 field goals (39 percent), 12 of 15 free throws (80 percent), 39 rebounds, 13 turnovers.