Stoneham’s stingy defense knocks Fenwick from postseason

STONEHAM – Everywhere that Fenwick’s Amy Pelletier turned on Friday, there was a white Stoneham jersey right there to keep her from getting open shots.The Spartans ran two, and sometimes three, players at Pelletier anytime she had the ball and the strategy paid off in a massive way. Fenwick’s go-to player was held to only six points as the top seed took a 53-44 win and earned a date with Ipswich in the Division 3 North semifinals.”I didn’t know that they held Amy to only six points,” Fenwick coach Tim Harrington said after finding out how good the Stoneham defense was against Pelletier. “Even more credit to Stoneham. We just weren’t clicking, but a lot of that had to do with them and how they played.”The two teams had met a year ago in the North semifinals where Fenwick bounced the Spartans to reach the sectional final. On Friday, the Spartans (18-3) had ideas of getting sweet revenge and they did it with relentless rebounding and suffocating defense.Fenwick (13-11) never was able to get its offense untracked in the first quarter as Stoneham owned the glass and used seven points from senior guard Arianna Tuccelli to take a 15-4 lead.”They are just relentless on the glass and we knew that coming in,” Harrington said. “And they just killed us there.”Tucelli capped a 13-0 run early in the second quarter as Stoneham led 17-4 and was seriously threatening to run Fenwick right out of the gym by halftime. The Crusaders hung in thanks to the play of Sarah James, who scored six of her eight first half points during the second quarter to help her club stay within 12 (26-14) at halftime.”We talked at the half about making the run that we’ve made during games all season,” Harrington said. “And that’s all we focused on.”Evidently the Crusaders heeded what was discussed at the break cause they came out like a team on a mission to start the third quarter.Pelletier canned a three and Sarah Green followed with a bucket to quickly cut it back to a seven-point gap. James then would score seven of the Crusaders next nine points to pull her team even at 29-29 with 3:00 left in the third.The Spartans called timeout to regroup and then proceeded to put together what proved to be the game’s defining stretch. Vanessa Bramonte’s offensive putback proved to be the catalyst on a 9-0 run to close the third and give Stoneham back a 38-29 lead.”We had all the momentum in the world there when we got that run. But to their credit, Stoneham came back and they answered the bell,” Harrington said.Fenwick closed the gap to six twice early in the fourth quarter before the Spartans turned the wick back up defensively.Jen Geraghty, who led the Spartans with 16 points, hit a pair of jumpers with 3:30 left to give Stoneham a 46-35 lead. Yet despite seeing the Spartans go a paltry 5-of-11 from the foul line in the final 1:45, Fenwick could get no closer than six on Erin Botticelli’s three with 30 seconds left.”It’s a really disappointing outcome,” Harrington said. “We felt like that we could come in here and win this game. But we didn’t play good enough (Friday) to beat a team like Stoneham.”