Swampscott girls hoop shakes off slow start, defeats Weston

SWAMPSCOTT – The rust slowly wore off the shoulders of the Swampscott girls basketball team in the second period against Weston Saturday evening. The Big Blue hadn’t played in nine days, and it showed, as the squad trailed 9-6 at the end of the opening stanza. Yet Swampscott ended period number two with a 15-0 blast, which helped catapult the club past the Wildcats, 55-38, at Swampscott High in the MIAA Division 3 North quarterfinals.As a result, the Big Blue (19-2) will take on Stoneham Wednesday at Classical (7) in the semifinals.Click here for a photo gallery from the game.Swampscott trailed, 13-11, in the early moments of the second quarter before the Big Blue blitzed the Wildcats to effectively put the game out of reach. Forward Allie Beaulieu (12 points) got things started with a nifty left-handed hook to tie the score, and then teammate Kara Gilberg (25) cut through the Weston defense off the transition to put the Blue ahead to stay. She was fouled on the play, and connected on the shot for a 16-13 edge.After a pair of free throws, Beaulieu finished off a strong fast break in which four of the Big Blue players touched the ball, ending on a feed from forward Tara Nimkar to her teammate. Two more baskets by Gilberg preceded the final score by Nimkar (16) to finish off the run that gave the club a 26-13 halftime margin.”We hadn’t had game action in nine days, and looked a little tight in the first period,” admitted Swampscott coach Jack Hughes. “I didn’t think we played that badly in the first period, and even at the half, we had only given up 13 points. Weston’s a good team, but we didn’t let them run what they wanted to.”Weston coach Linda Martindale saw what the 15-0 Swampscott streak did to her club.”We matched up well with them in height, but once they put together that run, I knew it was over for us,” she said. “Any time a team that good puts a run like that together, it’s tough to come back from.”The Wildcats (14-8) had only two players do the bulk of their scoring, and they were the only ones in the scoring column for almost three full quarters. Forward Rebecca Kimball led Weston with 17, while teammate Cyana Chilton had 14.The Wildcats closed the gap to 12 (39-27) early in the final stanza, but a 12-4 spurt by the Big Blue widened the lead to 20 (51-31) late in the contest.It took both clubs a while to get going, as the game’s first points weren’t registered until three minutes had been played. Both squads turned the ball over at an alarming rate, which contributed to the low scoring.”Some of those turnovers were as a result of our long passes,” said Hughes. “It’s tough to stop them, but Weston did a very good job doing that.”The Wildcats closed the period on a 6-0 run; then, after the Big Blue scored the first five points of the second quarter to regain the lead, Weston scored a pair of buckets for a 13-11 advantage. That would be its last lead of the game.”It was hard for us to generate offense,” Martindale said. “We had so many turnovers, especially on bad passes. And Gilberg is a smart player, with so many parts of her game. She knew when to push, and when to hold.”