NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- Mount Everett freshman Gwendolyn Carpenter scored 14 points, swiped seven steals, grabbed nine rebounds and dribbled crucial seconds off the clock in the waning moments of a 45-41 win over Lenox on Thursday in the consolation game of the Gene Wein Holiday Tournament at Drury High School.
"At the end of the game, Gwendolyn Parker was the difference in the game," Lenox coach Mike Nykorchuck said. "She just wanted the ball and wanted to take control, and at the end of the game, she did."
Senior Parker Snyder had a lot to do with the win as well, scoring five critical points down the stretch for Mount Everett.
Carpenter scored six points in a pivotal second quarter when the Eagles (3-1) erased a 15-11 deficit and took a 26-21 lead into half-time.
That lead never got higher than six in the second half, thanks largely to a Lenox 2-3 zone that confounded the Mount Everett offense.
It got down to one-point with 4 minutes, 45 seconds left on the clock when Alice Najimy (17 points) grabbed an offensive rebound and set up Jackie Hathaway for a bucket to make it 38-37.
But Snyder hit a 3-pointer to stretch the lead back to four, and then the teams traded baskets.
First Hathaway (nine points) drove the lane to make it 41-39, then Marion DeVoti fed Kelsey Netzer (nine points) to give the Eagles back their four-point cushion. Then, with 42 seconds left, Kaitlyn Arace set up Hathaway for a bucket to get the deficit down to two.
Mount Everett ended up inbounding the ball with 28 seconds left, a two-point lead and no shot clock. The Eagles got the ball to Carpenter in the backcourt, where she dribbled off most of the clock. But Najimy and Nicole Gamberoni doubled her and forced her to drive over the timeline and give up the ball.
Snyder ended up with it in the post and took a shot. She missed, grabbed the rebound and was fouled on the follow with 5.9 seconds left.
The senior forward then went to the line and sank two to make it 45-41, and Mount Everett's defense denied Lenox a last-second shot.
"She's been like ice on the foul line in the first couple of games," Mount Everett coach Scott Rote said. "We're trying to get it more into her inside. We had to move her inside when we lost [our starting center]. She's been taking a lot of the contact.
"She's big at the line. She's the one we want to go to the line whenever we can."
For Lenox (0-2), the experience of playing Mount Greylock and Mount Everett back-to-back is part of a building process that will pay dividends down the road, Nykorchuck said.
"I'm very pleased," the first-year coach said. "Two nights, I couldn't ask any more of these kids. Two weeks from now, these games that we're losing by four and six points, maybe we pull out.
"I think the ceiling for us is higher than some of the other teams because everything is brand new.
"It's going to come. I couldn't be more pleased with the attitude and how hard they work in practice and how they listen. It's just a matter of repitition and doing it over and over again so we get better at what we do."
Both Lenox and Mount Everett are at the South County Tournament on Monday at Lee High. Mount Everett plays Monument Mountain while the Millionaires face the host Wildcats.
