LYNN — There was no stopping the No. 10 seeded Masconomet girls basketball team Wednesday night at the Paul Cavanagh Field House, as the Chieftains defeated No. 7 English, 55-34, in the first round of the Division 1 North tournament.
The Bulldogs trailed by 21 with six minutes to go, but went on a 7-0 run to cut their deficit to 16, 44-30. Masconomet answered with a 7-0 run to put the game out of reach at 52-31 with a minute and half left to play.
“That’s a good team, I give a lot of credit to them,” said English coach Mackenzie Charles. “They came well prepared to play and they were better than us (Wednesday).”
Masconomet senior and 1,000-point scorer Makayla Graves led all scorers with 19 points.
English sophomore Kylia Reynoso led the Bulldogs with 12 points, all in the second half. Senior Mashalaya Johnson finished with six points, while seniors Julianna Perry and Jessica Ruiz each had five points.
Masconomet limped into the tournament, having lost its last three games and four of the last five. The Bulldogs weren’t exactly peaking either, having finished the season with back-to-back losses at the Woburn Tournament.
Both teams got off to a cautious start, but as the English turnovers started to add up, the Chieftains made the Bulldogs pay. Masconomet jumped out to a 6-0 lead before Mashayla Johnson drained a pair of free throws to put English on the board with a little more than three minutes left in the first quarter. The shot was just the second of the frame for the Bulldogs.
After that it was all Masconomet, which closed out the quarter with a 9-0 run to lead 15-2 after one.
Olivia Filmore (11 points) swished a 3-pointer to start the second quarter and make it 18-2. English fought back with a Ruiz free throw and a spin-around layup, and a steal and coast-to-coast layup by Reynoso cut the deficit to 18-7 with five minutes left.
Masconomet closed out the half with an 11-0 run to make it a 29-7 game at the break.
The Chieftains kept their foot on the gas in the third and led by as many as 29, 38-9, midway through the quarter. Back-to-back buckets from Nia Sams and Reynoso, then a Reynoso 3-pointer and Perry free throw cut the deficit down to 38-17. Graves stopped the bleeding with a little stop-and-pop, but English closed out the quarter with a Jaivalize Soto free throw and Perry bucket to make it 40-20 with eight minutes left.
With Masconomet making the leap into the Northeastern Conference next season, Charles said the game was a preview of what’s to come.
“They will help the competition in our league and I appreciate having another good team in our league as that will help us prepare for this time of the year,” Charles said. “It will help the entire league get stronger.”
The loss brought the careers of six Bulldogs to a close. That group — captains Perry and Ruiz, along with Johnson, Ravyn Rapely, Maylin Echevarria and Stacy Abreau — was instrumental in injecting new life into the program, leading the Bulldogs (14-7) to back-to-back appearances in the state tournament and a Northeastern Conference South Division title in 2020.
“They are great kids and they do a great job in the classroom,” said Charles. “They are a great example of what we want for the Lady Bulldogs. They got so much better from their freshman year when they only won five games, so I am so proud of them and they definitely went out better than the way they started.”
Masconomet (13-7) now moves on to the quarterfinal round Saturday against host Chelmsford (7).
