Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on March 8, 2014
AMHERST — The Northampton girls basketball team wasn’t making excuses for dropping its second consecutive Western Massachusetts Division 1 final on Friday.
Top-seeded Central (21-2) was the better team, earning the title with a 49-35 victory over the No. 2 Blue Devils (18-5) at the Curry Hick Cage.
“They just played a lot harder than we did,” senior Anna Walther said. “They played with intensity and they knocked down shots, rebounded when they needed to, they had really good on-ball pressure and we didn’t execute what we needed to.”
The Golden Eagles will play the Central Mass. champion on Tuesday at 5:45 p.m. at the MassMutual Center in the state semifinals. No 1. Holy Name faces off against No. 2 Westford, Saturday at 8 p.m. for the CMass title.
Central shut down Northampton’s offense, broke through the defense, created turnovers and used its size to its advantage.
The Blue Devils couldn’t get through traps or get shots to drop. Hamp couldn’t rebound or avoid foul trouble.
“We didn’t knock down enough shots and then we started panicking a little bit, tried to do a little bit too much defensively, but they killed us on the boards,” Northampton coach Perry Messer said. “They are tall, long, big. We weren’t physical enough, so if you don’t limit second shots with a team like that you’re going to struggle.”
Kendra Hicks, Central’s 6-foot-2 forward, scored a game-high 16 points and 6-3 center Jeane Bunn added nine points as the duo created trouble on both sides of the ball.
Defensively, Central held all of the Blue Devils’ leading scorers below their season averages, most notably Walther, who had a season-low six points. It was only the second time this season she scored in single digits. Maya Kerstetter led Northampton with 11 points.
“They took Anna Walther out of the game,” Messer said. “When your leading scorer doesn’t get many looks and the other four don’t step up and make shots, it can be a tough night to win.”
But the Blue Devils never gave up. When Kerstetter took her fifth foul with 1:02 to play, Walther and Khaila Ramirez led two strong drives in the final minute, albeit without success.
“We were down most of the time, but we knew we were in it the whole time,” Walther said. “There was never a time where we thought we were down and couldn’t come back.”
Northampton came out strong, opening on a 7-2 run that was capped by a 3-pointer from Kerstetter. The two sides traded baskets until Bunn hit the second of two from the line and Octavia McAllister sunk a layup to pull Central within 11-8 with 47.1 seconds remaining in the first.
Bunn inched the Golden Hawks closer with two shots from the line and Hicks made her first shot to take the lead, 12-11, with 5:16 left in the second.
Anna Moore grabbed the lead back, 13-12, with a floater inside off a steal. Hicks answered with a basket for the third lead change in less than a minute.
Kerstetter later took a feed from Walther for a layup and a 17-16 advantage, but Alayah Sweeney matched the effort for the fifth lead change of the quarter and triggered a 6-0 run with 2:04 on the clock.
Rachel Sheehan hit a jumper near the left post to halt the run as Hamp entered halftime trailing 23-19.
“I think we started off playing pretty good defense, got into it pretty quickly,” Walther said. “We started making shots in the beginning, but then we weren’t knocking down shots, so we couldn’t get into our defense and they started scoring.”
In the third, Hicks made it an eight-point game with a putback, but then Central took three fouls in 15 seconds, the final of which put Walther at the line. She hit both shots and Kerstetter drained a deep 3 to pull Northampton within 29-26 with 4:32 to play.
The Golden Eagles responded with a 10-3 run to close the quarter.
“You gotta shoot the ball well in a game like this, we just didn’t get those rolls,” Messer said. “Made a couple runs and stuff, tried to anyway, just have to give them the credit, they played well and they made the plays they needed to.”
Trailing 39-29, Northampton opened the fourth quarter with back-to-back baskets and won a loose ball. Central called timeout with 5:51 left, then forced a Hamp turnover. Hicks made a layup with 5:08 to play and followed with a floater to make it 43-33 and 3:59 left.
The Golden Eagles went 4 for 5 from the stripe in the final two minutes to put the game out of reach.
“At Western Mass., you’ve got to be able to knock down those foul shots because they are going to be a big factor the rest of the game,” Walther said. “Might not seem like it in the first two minutes of the game, but at the end they could really come down to being one of the most important things that happen.”
It was the final game for seniors Walther, Kerstetter, Moore and Ramirez.
“They’ve worked hard, they’ve won a lot of games. They are disappointed, rightfully so and stuff, but they’ve lead this program,” Messer said. “Some nights are better than others, but you learn form it and go back to the drawing board. The kids that are coming up in our program, the young kids, hopefully they are watching.”