DALTON, Mass. – The South Hadley girls basketball team was 4-for-14 at the free throw line in the first 31 minutes of the game on Friday night.
The Tigers then made four straight at the line in the last 18 seconds to close out a 44-37 win over Wahconah.
Cara Dean scored 11 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, and South Hadley used a 9-0 run in that fourth quarter to take an insurmountable lead as Wahconah lost for the first time in four games and slipped to 4-2 on the season.
“That’s the beauty of basketball, it’s a game of runs, right?” Wahconah coach Liz Kay said. “I mean, we make a shot here or there. They miss a shot here or there, and it’s a different game, whether it be a free throw or whether it be in the half court.
“That said, that might be one of the most composed games that we’ve played this year. We’ve got a really young group of kids who don’t have a tremendous amount of experience. So to see them play in another tight game and to be able to compete until, I think, the last 15 seconds says a lot about them.”
Half of Wahconah’s games have been decided by five points or fewer this winter.
Friday’s contest came right down to the wire thanks to a five-point spurt by Wahconah to answer the Tigers’ 9-0 run that opened a 40-32 advantage with 3 minutes, 6 seconds on the clock.
Dani Barry (seven points) stopped the Tigers’ run by converting an assist from Olivia Mason in Wahconah’s press break to make it 40-34.
After the teams traded a few scoreless possessions, Madison McCarthy (nine points) drained a 3-pointer to make it a one-possession game with 1:04 on the clock.
Wahconah got the ball back after a turnover with 30 seconds on the clock. But after handling South Hadley’s press for the most part all night, Wahconah turned the ball over into the press with 24 seconds left.
Wahconah’s Anna Doyle (four points, 12 rebounds) was forced to foul the Tigers’ Maddie Soderbaum driving to the basket with 18 ticks on the clock. Soderbaum, who missed two free throws earlier in the quarter, was true this time around and made it a two-possession game, 42-37.
Wahconah got off a shot at the other end, but Dean got the defensive rebound.
It took Wahconah two fouls to get South Hadley into the bonus, and with 3.3 seconds left, Drew Alley converted both her free throws to provide the final margin.
After a low-scoring but back-and-forth first quarter, Wahconah took the game’s first sizable lead with a 9-1 run to start the second quarter.
Olivia Mason scored twice in the paint to get things going, and Barry capped it with a triple to make it 18-11 with 1:40 left in the half.
Offense picked up in the final moments of that half, as the Tigers scored six of the next eight points to get within three at 20-17 going to the locker room.
South Hadley carried the momentum into the third and pulled ahead briefly at 28-26 midway through the quarter. But Wahconah answered with a 6-3 run – all at the foul line – that spanned the third and fourth quarters.
Mason went 3-for-4 at the line during that stretch on her way to a 17-point, 12-rebound night.
“I think we gave up several offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter, but, that said, Olivia Mason – that’s a monster night,” Kay said. “A big focus of ours was to get her the ball. We felt like we had an advantage there, which we did early on. And then [South Hadley] did a good job of adjusting to that.”
Mason scored her 17th point in the first minute of the fourth quarter. As a team, Wahconah scored just seven points over the final eight minutes.
After a McCarthy free throw gave Wahconah its last lead of the game at 32-31, South Hadley scored the next nine points, getting a 3-pointer and a baseline jumper from Dean during that stretch.
Wahconah will look to get back in the win column on Tuesday when it visits Taconic.
