How to explain, then, Concord’s stunning 55-54 South Piedmont Conference win on Candis Spratt’s bank shot at the buzzer?

“It’s sad. Quiet,” Mustang forward Emily Rich said of the postgame mood. “We thought we were ahead and kind of had a big head and didn’t play as well as we should have.”

The Mustangs (9-5 overall, 4-3 SPC) scored just 17 points in the second half and missed their first seven shots of the fourth quarter. When Rich connected in the lane with 2:45 left to play, that immense 20-point advantage was extended to a mere four points.

Seconds later, Concord’s Chel Sumlin drained a 3-pointer to make it 51-50, and a Deneesha Edwards layup gave the Spiders (8-3, 3-3) their first lead since 11-10. An exchange of free throws followed and the East home crowd hoped for the best when Misenheimer made both of her attempts with 10 seconds to play.

Concord called timeout trailing 54-53 and diagrammed the play — hit the unstoppable Spratt in the low post. The 5-foot-11 center took the pass, turned into the face of a double team and banked the ball off the glass. The shot settled through the basket a split second before the horn went off, setting off a wild celebration by the Spiders at center court.

“Physically she’s hard to match up with,” East head coach Randy Bingham said. “She gets the ball down low and you’re either going to foul her or she’s going to score.”

Spratt’s game-winner gave her a game-high 21 points, but she almost wasn’t around to be the heroine. She played with three fouls for most of the second half before collecting her fourth with 3:27 remaining.

“Any time she gets in foul trouble I get a little bit nervous,” Concord head coach Patrick Johnson said. “She eased off a little bit and was there to make some big plays.”

Also there was teammate Sumlin, who scored 19 points and sparked the early rumblings of the run. A 3-pointer and pull-up jumper started a 9-0 run that looked harmless enough. But Bingham called a timeout anyway after watching the Spiders pull within 39-26 while his team committed four turnovers in the first three minutes of the second half.

“I didn’t have any doubts that they’d come back. They do it every time,” Bingham said. “I think the (East) girls still played hard in the second half, things just got going bad and we couldn’t get it back the other way.”

The lead stood at 48-39 through three quarters and didn’t last long. East’s first point, on a Mary Clark Roberts free throw, didn’t come until 6:07 remained. Sumlin started shooting the lights out, Spratt dominated the boards to finish with 15 rebounds and guard Emily Taylor applied the defensive pressure that helped cause 15 East turnovers in the half.

“I told them in the locker room at half time to pick up the defensive pressure and we can get back in this game,” Johnson said. “I looked up at the end of the third quarter and we were down nine and said, ‘Girls, look at the scoreboard. We’re back in this game.’ ”

Everything that East had done right in the first half suddenly vanished. In the first 16 minutes the Mustangs dominated the boards, forced 15 turnovers and shot 50 percent from the floor because of easy shot opportunities. Rich had 10 points at the half, forward Lora Williams had 11 and senior guard Nicole Loggins had tallied seven points and five steals.

Because East was playing so well before playing so poorly, the loss was that much harder to swallow.

“This one hurts bad,” Bingham said. I told the girls that we got way too careless in the second half and they’ll make you pay for it,” Bingham said. “Credit Concord. They could easily have gotten blown out here tonight but they sucked it up and came back.”

CONCORD (55) — Patton 2, Edwards 4, Weant, Russell 2, Lynch, Sumlin 19, Taylor 7, Spratt 21.

EAST ROWAN (54) — Loggins 11, Rich 12, Misenheimer 12, Roberts 2, Morgan 6, Williams 11, Poole, Alexander, Haynes.

Concord 11 8 20 16 — 55