Team of Rivals Excels at Bay State Games
ROXBURY, Mass. -- The girls of the West squad came home from the Bay State Games with silver medals around their necks.
But the experience of playing for that team was as good as gold.
For a little more than a month, 12 girls from six different schools throughout Berkshire County sweated together it out in the gym at Pittsfield's Miss Hall's School, forming a cohesive unit that was able to hold its own against all-comers at the Boston sports festival.
Making the team allowed the girls to work on their game on the court and form bonds off the court.
"I think it was a great opportunity," recent Drury High graduate Emily Moulton said. "It helps us improve our game by improving it with other people we've been playing against for the last four years. I think it was fun to get to know people from Pittsfield and people from Lee because we've been playing against them since [grade] 7-8 travel team.
"We made a lot of good friendships in this time. We hung out all weekend, and I think we've made connections we never would have thought we'd make before."
The West girls did more than "hang out" in Beantown. They hung tough with the tournament and hometown favorites from the Metro region.
Although Metro broke open a one-possession game in the second quarter and led by 12 at the half and 22 midway through the third quarter, the Berkshire squad refused to give up.
Pittsfield High's Lauren Carnevale scored in the post with 4:30 left in the 40-minute game to make it 73-53 and start an 14-3 run that got West within 11 when Carnevale's high school temmate, Peyton Steinman, knocked down a triple with 30 seconds on the clock.
West attempted to get into a fouling game, but Metro sank two-of-four from the line down the stretch and kept the Berkshirites from getting another quality look from beyond the arc.
The late comeback spoke to two elements of West's success in the three-day tournament: its depth (bench play was critical in the closing minutes) and its refusal to give up.
"Our bench is deep, one through 12, so having that we could put in whoever and we didn't lose anything," said Moulton, a starter for the Blue Devils who made the most of her minutes on the all-star team, grabbing five rebounds and blocking a shot in Sunday evening's gold medal game.
West coach Matthew Ward knew coming into the weekend that his team was going to go all out every game.
"I knew they could all play," he said. :The challenge was to get them to play together, but they did that so quickly. And they worked so hard.
"A lot of teams, you say, 'Make sure you practice like you play.' With this team, we played like we practiced. That was incredible because I knew what to expect when we came in, which was 100 percent effort."
West's effort and talent helped it win its first five games by an average of just more than 17 points. That included an 11-point over the same Metro team that ended up taking the gold medal.
Only three of the girls on the West squad -- Moulton, Lenox's Elizabeth Mitts and Berkshire School's Camryn Biasin -- were seniors last year. The rest will be back on the public high school and prep school courts of Berkshire County next winter.
This season, they will have a better appreciation for some of their opponents.
"It has been amazing," Mount Greylock rising senior Lucy Barrett said. "It's really nice. I love my Mount Greylock team, but it's really great playing with all the girls you used to play against, like the girls on Pittsfield and Drury. They're the ones you compete against, and you know they're going to be your toughest matchups, and then you get to be on a team with them.
"It was awesome."
