Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on March 5, 2014
AMHERST — The Granby girls basketball team walked off the court at the Curry Hicks Cage with heads hanging and tears flowing after losing to Hoosac Valley by double-digits for the second time this season.
Tuesday’s 71-40 loss to the No. 2 Hurricanes (21-1) was harder as it ended the season and halted the Western Massachusetts Division 3 tournament run in the semifinals, but coach Tom Burke was able to find a highlight in the third loss of the year for the third-seeded Rams (19-3).
“I told them it’s not time to hold our heads, get our heads down about the loss, we’ve got to celebrate what our seniors did” in their careers, Burke said. “They won over 50 games in three years, they got better every year and won more games — 16, 18, 19 this year. I told them they’ve done an awful lot for the program, they don’t have a whole lot to be ashamed of.”
It was the second consecutive trip to the semifinals for the Rams and fourth postseason for the four seniors, Rebecca Sapouckey, Casey Imelio (eight points), Kiley Baran (two points) and Kayla Bailly (two points). Sapouckey led Granby with 12 points. Junior Meghan Sullivan followed with 11.
Emily Rosse scored a game-high 27 points for Hoosac which advances to the championship game at 2:15 p.m. Saturday against the winner of the other semifinal between South Hadley and Sabis. That game originally scheduled for Tuesday was postponed to 7 p.m. Wednesday.
“The one thing they really wanted was one more win to get to final,” Burke said. “That’s what they wanted, so they are very disappointed. I feel awful for them. They are a great group of kids.”
Midway through the season, Granby did not have time to prepare to take on the Hurricanes in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic due to a packed week of games. After playing a full conference slate and making it through the quarterfinals, the adjustments made after the 74-48 loss were nowhere to be seen midway through the first quarter.
“The difference looked good in the first four minutes and we had a plan, we just didn’t take care of the ball,” Burke said. “We had almost 20 turnovers at halftime and we didn’t have too many in the first four minutes.”
Sapouckey capped Granby’s opening 8-3 run on a layup with 5 minutes, 28 seconds to play in the first quarter. Meghan Sullivan added one of her own to make it 12-5 with 4:21 on the clock, but it was the Rams’ last bucket of the quarter.
Turnovers and missed open looks began to alter the game as the Hurricanes closed the quarter on a 10-0 run.
“The way we came out early, I thought I was very encouraged the way we were moving the ball and everything,” Burke said. “We just seem to lose our edge. I just think we started turning it over and we hadn’t been turning it over. What we had been doing early on, the way we were moving, there was no reason to think that was going to change.”
Hoosac pushed its lead to 17-12 with a layup by Rosse to open the second.
A floater by Sapouckey cut the deficit to 20-16 with 5:48 but another deep Hoosac run quickly put Granby in a hole for the second half. Sapouckey hit a layup with 1:12 on the clock to make it 36-18. Rosse hit a jumper to take a 20-point game into halftime.
“We made some adjustments” at halftime, Burke said. “We tried to get Becca more in the middle, get it to the big, but I don’t like doing that because I’d rather have her down under the basket for when we do break through, but we had to do it to help Kate (Sullivan) and Meghan out because they were struggling a little bit.”
Meghan Sullivan hit back-to-back shots to keep Granby within 45-25 with 4:23 left in the third, but again the Hurricanes closed on a run, this time 9-4.
“The biggest things we talked about was keeping the ball in the middle of the floor against the pressure, and getting back on D,” Burke said. “We started failing to do that and that’s what led to the deficit.”
The Rams opened the final quarter on a 9-4 run, with the last five scored by Sapouckey, to cut the deficit to 56-38 with 6:30 to play. A jumper by Kailynne Frederick sparked a 14-2 closing run by the Hurricanes.
“A tough one would be if we lost by just a couple points. They beat us pretty good the first time and we thought we made some changes that would help,” Burke said. “We missed a lot of layups, all the little things we needed to do to stay in the game with them. We just couldn’t do it.”