LENOX, Mass. – Lenox sophomore Grace Julieano came up big on a night when the Millionaires needed an inside presence.
Julieano scored 12 points and pulled down 14 rebounds, and Lenox outscored Drury, 9-2, in the fourth quarter to earn a 40-32 win and stay unbeaten on the season.
Lenox coach Nicole Patella has talked about her team being guard-centric, with just one apparent post presence in Kelsey Kirchner.
But Julieano was a force on the inside against the Blue Devils.
“She is a big,” Patella said of Julieano. “She likes to be under the basket. You can’t teach offensive rebounding, and she just has the nose for it.
“She’s an amazing rebounder. I’m really happy she had a great game. Double-double for her, so I’m really proud of her.”
On a night when offense was hard to come by for either team, Chloe Parsenios knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and scored nine for the Millionaires, who got seven points from Claire O’Brien and six points, six rebounds and a few assists from Jocelyn Fairfield.
Early on, Drury had the better of things, opening up with a 9-0 run that started with a 3-pointer from Brooke Bishop and ended with a Bishop basket in the post.
Lenox did not score a point in the first five minutes of the game.
“I think this team just has that mental focus,” Patella said. “They don’t get shaken very easily. They stayed calm. They know that they’re going to shoot out of it. So it’s just a matter of slowing down, taking good shots, waiting for them to fall, being patient.”
The Millionaires finally got on the board with 2 minutes, 45 seconds left in the quarter when Julieano put back an offensive rebound to make it 9-2.
After a conventional three-point play from Ashlyn Hayden pushed the Blue Devils’ lead to 10 points, Lenox finished the quarter on an 8-0 run.
That stretch included a couple of steals from Parsenios, who had four swipes in the first quarter to help keep Drury from building a bigger advantage.
“She causes a lot of havoc – on her own, too,” Patella said. “She really doesn’t need much help. We’re trying to get her a little more help up top. But just her mere presence kind of affects the offense.”
The teams traded runs in the second quarter, which ended with the Blue Devils ahead by one, 22-21.
It was a 3-point lead midway through the third when Bishop hit her third 3 to make it 30-27. She finished with a game-high 13 points and eight rebounds.
Julieano converted an assist from Fairfield in the post with 1;18 left in the third to get Lenox within a point, and she converted another Fairfield dime moments later with a baseline jumper to give Lenox a 31-30 lead it held until the end of the period.
The fourth quarter was all Lenox – again, not much in the way of offense for either side. But a Millionaire squad that held its first four opponents to fewer than 40 points allowed Drury to get there, just barely, when Isabella Moore scored the Blue Devils’ only bucket of the quarter about two minutes in to make it 34-32.
“We just didn’t score,” Drury coach Ian Downey said of the fourth. “The rest of the game, we let them stay in it by not rebounding. We gave up too many offensive rebounds. And we didn’t protect the ball.”
Drury committed 13 turnovers in the first three quarters and six in the fourth.
“Ultimately, when I look at the stats, we just gave them a lot more extra possessions,” Downey said. “In the fourth quarter, I thought we played too tight, and we didn’t protect the ball. … We’ve now had two road games, Agawam and this game, where we look great through three quarters, and we get to the fourth quarter, and we’re a completely different team.
“I don’t know if it’s legs. I don’t know if it’s younger kids just learning how to win. But, ultimately, in the fourth quarter, you’ve got to get shots off, and that starts with protecting the ball. We just didn’t get quality shots in the fourth quarter.”
A triple from Parsenios with 5:20 on the clock put Lenox up by five at 37-32. And Kirchner and O’Brien hit enough free throws down the stretch to keep the game out of reach.
Lenox (5-0) starts a long stretch of Franklin North Division games on Saturday when it hosts Hopkins Academy.
Drury (2-3) is home on Friday against Central Division foe Pope Francis.
