Five years ago to the day Millennium's girls basketball team upended highly-ranked Riverdale Baptist at the Nike Tournament of Champions. 

On Wednesday afternoon Millennium tried to celebrate that anniversary in style against the same team - No. 4  in the country-ranked Riverdale Baptist - but came up 97 seconds short.

Riverdale Baptist took its first lead of the game with 1:37 to play and hung to the final buzzer with perfect free-throw shooting in topping Millennium, 49-44, in the Joe Smith bracket at Desert Vista High School.

Millennium is 7-2 for the season with its only other loss to La Joya Country Day, the No. 2 team in the country. Riverdale Baptist remained perfect on the year at 7-0.

"First of all I was proud of how hard we competed," Millennium coach Cory Rojeck said. "We were up three (42-39) with what ,about three minutes left, but we played like we were behind by three. Games like this make you better. We just have to clean up execution-wise the way we played some in the second haf and down the stretch."

Millennium, paced in the first half by sophomore Trayanna Crisp with 13 of her team-high 16 points, led 9-4 after a quarter, 27-20 at intermission and 34-30 heading to the fourth period. A 39-33 lead with four minutes left melted to a 39-all tie with 2:46 to go.

Junior guard Kassidy Dixon (12 points) pumped Millennium back up hitting a three for 42-39 lead with 2:28 to go. Three Millennium turnovers over the next minute played into three fouls and Riverdale Baptist began a streak of perfection from the free-throw line that allowed them to prevail.

Two sets of two free throws by Synia Johnson put Riverdale Baptist in front, 43-42. Six more were added -- two each by Paris McBride, Jalyn Brown and Kaylah Ivey - making it 10-for-10 when it mattered most.

"The margin of error is very small when you play teams in the Joe Smith Division," Rojeck said. "The best teams are in this one, and we were right there. Come back tomorrow and see what we can do against Grandview (CO) or Long Beach Poly (CA)."

North Carolina-bound senior Ali Zelaya also scored in double figures for Millennium finishing with 11 points. No player tallied in double figures for Riverdale Baptist, but six players checked in wiith between six and nine points. 

Arizona schools are competing in five of the six tournament brackets that continue through Saturday. The composite record of Arizona schools on Wednesday  - 29 of them - was 5-24. The only schools posting wins on Wednesday were Westwood and Desert Vista in the Derrill Kipp Bracket,  Desert Mountain in the Dan Wiley Bracket and Chandler and Shadow Mountain in the Mike Desper Bracket.