Mountain View’s Cadence Kennedy (20) lays the ball up while being defended by Thurston’s Bridgette Nault during a girls basketball game at Mountain View High School in Bend Tuesday night.

Needing two points to tie the game with less than 10 seconds remaining, Mountain View’s plan was to get a player driving to the basket to score and send the game against Thurston to overtime.

The play did not go exactly as it was drawn up, but when the ball skipped around the perimeter to Aly Aragon all alone in the corner, the junior guard decided not to drive and instead hoisted up a 3-pointer in the closing seconds.

Nothing but net.

“We tried to score on a layup and that did not happen,” Aragon said. “We are better at moving the ball around and finding the open person. And that person happened to be me. And I got lucky enough to make it.”

The Cougars took down Thurston 40-39 in a nonleague girls basketball game Tuesday night at Mountain View High School to win their second-straight contest after a tough tournament stretch during which they lost seven consecutive games. Aragon led the charge with 18 points, including four 3-pointers, and sophomore guard Cadence Kennedy added 12 points for the Cougars.

Aragon might have called the shot luck, but it marked the second time this season that she has hit a buzzer-beating shot to lift Mountain View to victory. In the Cougars’ Dec. 10 game against Lake Oswego, Aragon’s 3-pointer gave the Cougars a 42-39 victory.

“Players don’t get a lot of opportunities to hit game-winning shots,” said Mountain View coach Jon Corbett. “She has hit a game-winning shot in two of the four home games that we have played at home. It was good decision-making by the other players to find her in that situation, and her having the confidence to take that shot.”

The Cougars (4-7 overall) overcame a slow start against the Colts (4-6), as they trailed 15-7 after the first quarter and 19-18 at halftime. In the third quarter, however, the Cougars found their groove, in large part due to Kennedy, who scored 10 of her 12 points in the quarter to help Mountain View take a 35-27 lead into the fourth quarter.

“She got really aggressive, went to the free throw line and made a lot of shots,” Corbett said. “Tonight, she was the one who pushed the aggression for us. Each night, I never know who it is going to be.”

Not knowing which player is going to step up is a new feeling for Mountain View. The past two seasons were two of the best in program history — an Intermountain Conference title, consecutive trips to the 5A state tournament and a sixth-place finish last season.

Those teams had a core of players in Kasey Booster, Avery Andrews, Ruby Haarberg and Lidia Jacobsen who took the program to unseen heights.

“It is a whole different dynamic,” Aragon said. “We have a lot of strong new players. We are just trying to get into the rhythm with each other and I think that is going to take some time. But we’ve done a really good job at doing that and I think we should be ready by league.”

Aragon and senior guard Kelsea Bomke are the only two holdovers that played substantial minutes during last year’s run to the state tournament. But now there are new players filling in such as Kennedy, junior Scarlett Haarberg and a pair of freshmen in Keilah McCarthy and Blaire Eckman.

“Everyone is trying to step up,” Corbett said. “And they are doing a great job at that. In our last win (63-35 over South Eugene) we had four players in double-figures and three more who had eight or nine points. That is the way we are going to do it with this team.”

The Cougars will be on the road Friday where they will play Crook County for the second time this season. The Cowgirls won the first meeting 50-48 on Dec. 21 at the South Coast Les Schwab Holiday Classic in Coos Bay.