SHEFFIELD, Mass. – Julia Devoti scored 11 points Tuesday to lead the Mount Everett girls basketball team to a 34-27 win over Old Colony in the preliminary round of the Division 5 state tournament.

 

Emma Goewey scored 10 for the Eagles, who overcame a slow start and finished strong with a 14-point fourth quarter.

 

“Both teams came out flat to start the game – for Old Colony it made sense traveling almost three hours to play a game, but for us we needed to up our intensity and keep our composure,” Mount Everett coach Josh King said. “We were able to establish a lead at half but only by two points and to start the third, Old Colony came out firing scoring the first seven points to take a five-point lead.”

 

King said he made a couple of switches on defense, including playing a box-and-one with Hudah Ngoy Nkulu on the visitors’ best shooter.

 

The Eagles managed to make it a tie game going to the fourth quarter and got nine points from Devoti in the fourth to help put the game away.

 

“Once we started moving the ball more in the fourth quarter, we started finding wide open looks and were spreading the defense which led to better looks,” King said. “We did a much better job at the free throw line to ice the game and the girls grinded out the win.”

 

Mount Everett goes to top-seeded Hoosac Valley on Friday in the round of 32.