BERLIN — Hiland coach Dave Schlabach has been waiting all season for his team to win a big game. After Saturday's come-from-behind 27-24 triumph over Garaway in a key Inter-Valley Conference showdown, the wait is over.

"We've been real hard on our juniors, but they've been clawing their way out of the doghouse," Schlabach said. "Until tonight, these girls have never won a big game on their own."

And the win over Garaway (14-2, 10-2) secured at least a share of another IVC title for Hiland (13-3, 12-1), which has won or shared every league title since 1995.

Hiland trailed from the end of the first quarter (4-3) until Hannah Stoneman's three-point play in the fourth quarter gave the hosts a 22-20 lead.

Bria Coil split a pair of free throws to make it 23-20 before Andrea Kettlewell cut it back to 23-22 with a layup for the Pirates.

Meagan Hall stroked two free throws at the 4:11 mark of the final frame to put Hiland back up by three.

"We wanted to attack them and get to the free throw line," Schlabach said. "That was a big emphasis of ours for this game. They're just really hard to score against. You don't want to play a perimeter game against them in the half court."

Hiland went to the foul line 21 times, making 14.

"We didn't know if we could score 30 against them," Schlabach said. "We felt we had to keep them under 25 in order for us to win. When we got to three minutes and it was a one-possession game, we felt anything could happen."

In a game where points were at a premium, a three-point lead seemed insurmountable.

Especially after the Pirates turned the ball over.

But Hiland gave it back moments later.

Kettlewell misfired on a 3-pointer, but Hallie Slemmer was there to stick back the miss for Garaway to trim the Hiland lead to 25-24.

McKenzie Miller split a pair of free throws for the Hawks to make it 26-24, but the Hiland defense forced a turnover with 1:31 remaining.

The Hawks gave it back on a traveling call 30 seconds later.

Garaway could not capitalize and missed a shot, and Ashley Weaver ripped down the rebound. After a timeout, Hiland held the ball until McKenzie Miller was fouled with 14 seconds to play. She split the resulting free throws to give Hiland a three-point lead, 27-24.

Garaway was unable to get off a final shot.

"This is the first time in 20 years I've coached against Garaway where we were not going to try and push the tempo," Schlabach said. "We were going to be excited if the game was in the low 30s. We didn't mind taking time off the clock as long as it was close. We felt that their talent level and where we're at right now in our program, any chance we got at shortening the game would be a real good thing."

McKenzie Miller had eight points to lead Hiland's offensive charge. The Hawks had only six field goals in the game, one of them a 3-pointer by Regan Miller.

Kettlewell and Anya Misko led Garaway with seven points apiece.

The Pirates made only 8-of-26 shots from the field.

"We did everything we wanted to do. We just didn't shoot the ball very well," Pirates coach Scott Bardall said. "We got good looks, by and large, we just didn't make them. They had something to do with that. Hiland's a good defense team. It's tough to play a very good team like that on the road."