South wins Agganis women’s basketball classic

LYNN – After going to war with each other once or twice a season for the last four years, the cream of the crop among Northeastern Conference girls basketball players joined forces with a couple of top guns from St. Mary’s and the combination proved deadly.The South came out firing in a 61-48 win over the North in the fifth annual Agganis All-Star Women’s Basketball Classical Monday at English High School.Click here for an Agganis photo gallery.Just about everyone got into the scoring action, with English’s Jeanette Anderson racking up 12 points – which was good enough to earn her the South Most Valuable Player Award – and Winthrop’s Courtney Finn checking in with 13. Both did their best work in the first half to help the South build up a comfortable 37-22 lead by the break.Swampscott High girls coach Jack Hughes, who led his team to a Division 3 state title this year, joked that it was nice to have English’s Anderson on his side rather than having to find a way to contain her.”That was a fun game,” Hughes said. “I think the girls played hard. It was fun getting to coach those girls. It’s an honor to be selected.”Anderson and Finn were the show in the first half, with Finn finding her range from three-point land early. The Bentley University-bound star buried three threes before the half, while Anderson, who will be playing at Caldwell College next season, connected on one. St. Mary’s guard Amy Bozarjian also had a hot hand in the first half, scoring seven points before intermission, including a three about four minutes into the game that got the South off and running.The North team had its work cut out trying to stop a team that also included Swampscott’s Allie Beaulieu (Bates) and Marissa Gambale (Merrimack); St. Mary’s players Nicole Hanlon (Holy Cross) and Alison McCarthy (Anna Maria); Sochitta Men (Brown) and Pierina Mora (Quinnipiac) from Classical, and Katerina Mallios (Babson) from Winthrop. Swampscott’s Tara Nimkar, who along with Beaulieu hit the 1,000 career-point mark for the Big Blue this season, was invited to play, but she had to be at college orientation at Michigan.”It was good to see the girls (play) one last time before they go off to college,” Hughes said.The North team, which was coached by Pentucket’s John McNamara, got off to a slow start, but heated up a bit in the second half. Kayla Carnell of Burlington, who will be attending St. Michael’s College in the fall, led the offense with 12 points. Carnell was the North Most Valuable Player. Alison Newell (New York University) chipped in with nine points and Lauren DiCarlo (Providence College) was good for seven. Arlington Catholic’s Meredith Soper, who was a familiar face in the Northeastern Conference when she played for Winthrop as a freshman and sophomore, added six points. The North team was without one of the area’s top players, Kirsten Daamen, who had college business to attend to at Central Connecticut University. Daamen was at the center of a great rivalry over the past few years that developed between Swampscott and Pentucket.