PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- On a night when every possession was hard-fought and every point was precious, Wahconah’s Noelle Furlong hit from long-range when her team needed it most.

 

Furlong hit a pair of fourth-quarter 3-pointers to help give her team a little bit of breathing room and send it on to a 38-30 win over Taconic on Monday night.

 

Jillian Cote led Wahconah with 10 points, and Furlong had 13 rebounds to go along with her nine points -- all on triples.

 

“She hit two big 3s, especially when we were struggling to score a little bit,” Wahconah coach Liz Kay said of Furlong.

 

“Obviously, we open up things a little bit more when we have Cassie [Tobler] and Abbie [Steinman] out there. It’s Cassie’s first game back, and I thought she did a great job. That opens up shots for kids like Noelle, who certainly has been hitting them a lot lately.”

 

Tobler scored four points and grabbed five rebounds after missing most of the season with an injury. Wahconah point guard Maria Gamberoni added seven.

 

Furlong, who averages nearly two 3-pointers per game to lead Wahconah, knocked one down from beyond the arc for her team’s first field goal midway through a low-scoring first quarter.

 

The make ignited a 14-0 Wahconah run to end the quarter that left the visitors with a 15-7 lead after Morgan Marauszwski hit a triple.

 

Taconic bounced back with a 3-pointer and a transition bucket from Ciany Conyers (eight points) to open the second, and it stayed a 15-12 game for about four minutes.

 

Finally, Gamberoni set up Steinman (seven points) in the post to get some offense going with 2 minutes, 38 seconds on the clock, and Wahconah carried a 21-13 lead into the break.

 

Taconic got within two points in the third quarter when Taea Bramer set up Ahliya Phillips (game-high 11 points) in transition to make it 23-21 with just less than two minutes left in the period.

 

But Cote hit a transition jumper, and Gamberoni had a steal and lay-in to push the lead back to six points going to the fourth.

 

It was still a six-point margin when Furlong scored a 3 on a pass from Gamberoni to make it 32-23.

 

After Bramer scored in transition with 4:12 left, Furlong answered with another 3 after a Cote offensive rebound to give Wahconah a 35-25 lead.

 

It got as high as 12 points when Tobler converted a one-and-one, and Taconic never got closer than seven the rest of the way.

 

Taconic (13-4) hosts Monument Mountain on Thursday.

 

Wahconah (16-2) hosts Pittsfield on Thursday.