3s from 'No. 4' Lift Mounties in Fourth
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The Mount Greylock girls basketball team Friday scored just 18 points through three quarters.
Then, it scored 18 in the fourth.
Mia Filliault scored 11 points, including two 3-pointers in the fourth, to lead the Mounties to a 36-34 win over Monument Mountain.
The Mounties trailed by as many as seven points in the low-scoring opening quarters and did not have a lead after the Spartans went ahead, 4-3, until the 6:20 mark of the fourth, when Filliault knocked down a 3 with an assist from Molly Sullivan to make it 25-24.
Mount Greylock proceeded to get the better of the visitors in the back-and-forth fourth, scoring its last points with 1:50 left when Charlotte Coody scored in the post to put her team up, 36-33.
Coody, who entered the game averaging 17 points per night, was held to just four. But the outside shooting of Filliault and AJ Pelkey (six points) turned the tide.
“I think it all came with a team effort,” Mount Greylock coach Lyndsey Wadsworth said. “I feel like in most games, we look to Charlotte and Jackie [Brannan] for the inside basket, but when they started getting shut off, the girls really stepped up and started shooting 3-pointers and looking for outside shots.”
Wadsworth on Friday was pinch-hitting for Mounties coach John Jacobbe, who was ill.
“We adjusted great to their man-to-man defense, and then we adjusted great to their 2-3 defense,” Wadsworth said. “These girls really deserved this win. They worked hard on both sides.”
Most of the game, the Mounties were going uphill.
Natlalie Lewis (11 points) scored on a scoop shot in the paint midway through the second quarter to give the Spartans their first big bulge at 12-5.
But Mount Greylock answered with six straight points to end the half.
Two Brannan buckets in the post wrapped around a Sullivan drive on the right wing to make it 12-11, Monument Mountain when the teams went to the locker room.
The Spartans then re-established their lead with back-to-back triples from Alex Tenney and Polly Geddes to start the third quarter.
It was still a seven-point bulge midway through the quarter, when Filliault hit her first 3-pointer of the night to make it 20-16.
Monument Mountain led, 22-18, going to the fourth, but the Mounties quickly erased that deficit.
Filliault was fouled on a 3-point attempt on the first possession of the fourth, and she made all three free throws to get her team within one.
After a bucket by Kayleigh Davis (nine points) at the other end, Brannan scored in the post. Mount Greylock then forced a Monument Mountain turnover, and Sullivan set up Filliault for a 3 to complete the 7-2 run and give the Mounties a 25-24 lead.
The teams traded baskets to get to 28-28 when Davis hit from the right wing with 3:44 remaining in regulation.
After a timeout, Coody set up Pelkey for a 3-pointer that rolled around the rim before dropping to give the Mounties a three-point lead.
Emily Mead (five points, 12 rebounds) answered with a bucket from the foul line, but Coody set up Filliault for a 3 with 2:55 remaining.
Another answer from Monument, this time a Davis 3, made it a 34-33 game and capped a stretch in which the teams combined for 18 points – or 25 percent of the offense in the game – in just more than two minutes of play.
“They just turned it on, and that was the game-changing momentum that we had that led us to that victory,” Coody said of the 3-point shooting from Pelkey and Filliault in the fourth.
Monument Mountain coach John Perreault agreed.
“To be honest, when Coody was in the game, if you look at a plus/minus … I think we’re a plus,” he said. “When Coody’s out of the game, we’re a minus. And, you know what, that No. 4 [Filliault] played great. She set herself, she got open, she made some key 3s, and you gotta give her credit.”
Coody, who struggled with foul trouble much of the night, did find a way to get the only field goal for either team in the last two minutes, that score with 1:50 on the clock that gave Mount Greylock a three-point cushion at 36-33.
Perrault called two timeouts from there, but despite forcing three Mount Greylock turnovers down the stretch, the Spartans only managed a Mead free throw with 13.6 seconds left.
“My team had a good effort,” Perrault said. “We had a few mental lapses, but that happens in high school basketball. I’m OK with today’s game. My kids played with heart. And we’re still coming back from illness. Some of the kids are still sluggish. It hit our program hard. That’s no excuse.
“It was a great game tonight, and it’s exactly the type of game I knew we were going to have here. … No. 4 beat us tonight, at the end of the day. Congrats to her.”
The Spartans (4-4) are home on Tuesday to face Agawam.
Mount Greylock (3-5) goes to Ludlow on Tuesday.