Revere girls rally past Swampscott

SWAMPSCOTT ? Trailing, 16-2, after just six minutes, it would have been easy for the Revere High girls basketball team to give up.View Photo GalleryBut that’s not the way the Patriots have been playing lately.Revere (5-7) rallied for a 43-38 victory over Swampscott, Friday night, at Swampscott High to post its third win in four games. Tiphani Harris led all scorers with 13 points, while Meagan Gotham added nine, including six in the final 1:33.Jacqueline Walsh paced the Big Blue (3-8) with 12 points, while Samantha Rizzo had 11.The key for Revere was switching from a 2-3 zone defense that had been working poorly in the first quarter to a man-to-man. The Patriots shut out Swampscott in the second quarter, and held the Big Blue to 10 points in each of the third and fourth quarters.”The man-to-man I think made the girls more aggressive,” Revere coach Katelyn Leonard said. “We started to create turnovers and that led to some baskets at the other end.”Revere also started taking better advantage of its superior height with Harris and Gotham. With Swampscott’s starting center, Emma Wright, in foul trouble all game long, Revere’s bigs were able to assert themselves, especially on the offensive glass.”We started out the game well and then they just took over,” Swampscott coach Abrom Roberts said.Walsh canned a couple of free throws with 1:45 left in the first quarter to cap off a 12-point run that gave the Big Blue a commanding 16-2 lead, but the Patriots answered with seven straight points before Meghan Hartmann made a driving layup just before the buzzer to give Swampscott an 18-9 lead.With its defense allowing nothing in the second quarter, Revere continued to chip away and took a 19-18 lead in the final minute of the first half when Harris scored off a rebound and Gotham made a bucket from the left block.The Patriots pushed the lead to five (26-21) when Ivonne Zapata sank a pair of free throws with 3:38 left in the third quarter, but Swampscott roared back behind five straight points by Rizzo and two free throws by Hartmann to take a 28-26 lead heading into the final period.Harris tied the game with a foul line jumper and Angela Curtis put the Patriots ahead for good when she glassed in shot from the right block. The Big Blue kept the game close, though, and a Rizzo 18-footer with 1:22 left cut Revere’s lead to one (37-36). Gotham put back her own missed shot and then gobbled up a miss by Jennifer Fajardo for another second chance bucket to increase the lead to five with 27 seconds left.Swampscott had to go into foul mode, but Harris iced the game by making a pair of free throws with 10.8 seconds left.