BOSTON — For almost the entire first half of Wednesday’s Division 3 state semifinal, things were looking shaky for the St. Mary’s girls basketball team. But one of the Spartans’ best defensive efforts of the season bought St. Mary’s coach Jeff Newhall and his team some time to figure things out.
“I think, if our defense plays that hard to keep us in the game, eventually over the course of 32 minutes with the weapons that we have we’re going to start scoring,” Newhall said.
And that’s exactly what happened. St. Mary’s opened the floodgates in the fourth quarter, scoring 21 points in the frame to defeat South champion Rockland 53-37 and punch a ticket to the Division 3 state final.
“Shots started going in,” Newhall said of the late offensive burst. “We started playing four guards. I think we were maybe overly concerned with matching up with their two bigs early. What spurred it was (Rockland’s Hannah Wyllie) got her third foul early in the third quarter so we said why don’t we try Van (Nguyen), go four guards, and see what happens.”
That decision may have very well decided the game in the third quarter. Nguyen (seven points) came off the bench to score a quick basket and swished a 3-pointer before the end of the third, giving St. Mary’s a five-point lead it never surrendered in the fourth.
“She sparked us a bit off the bench,” Newhall said. “She played so well that when they went back to their two bigs we said it was a matchup problem for them. We put one of our guards on one of their forwards and just applied as much ball pressure as we could.”
That helped open up the way for Maiya Bergdorf, who notched a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Olivia Matela (nine points) and Nicolette D’Itria (eight) also hit key shots while Gabby Torres and Yirsy Queliz each added seven points.
A 3-pointer from Matela gave St. Mary’s an early 3-2 lead but nothing came easy from there. The Bulldogs took back a slim lead, while the Spartans defense prevented things from getting out of hand.
A late second quarter surge was key to keeping St. Mary’s in things before the halftime break.
“There’s 75 stories to this game,” Newhall said. “But when there’s 2 minutes to go in the half, we’re down 18-12 and I’m thinking to myself, ‘do I burn a timeout? We have to keep this under 10 or else we could be in big trouble here.'”
Torres responded with a crucial 3-pointer in the final minutes to cut the lead to 18-15. Queliz followed with a steal and layup in transition to tie the game at 18-18 before half.
“All of a sudden at halftime, we’re thinking offensively could we play much worse? And we’re tied,” Newhall said. “I felt like we had momentum, but then of course Rockland goes out and scores the first four (in the third) and I’m thinking it wasn’t going to be a good ending. But we pulled it together eventually.”
The teams traded three leads in the third before Nguyen came in and provided the spark with her basket and 3-pointer at the buzzer to put St. Mary’s ahead 32-27.
“Van has been a role player for us,” Newhall said. “She’s been pretty consistent. She didn’t have a great day Saturday, so to be able to come back (Wednesday) and do what she did I think speaks a lot about her character.”
To the Bulldogs’ credit, they kept the lead at five points for some time, but back-to-back 3-pointers from Bergdorf and Matela with just over four minutes left put the Spartans ahead 44-33 and they cruised from there.
Now for the second straight year, St. Mary’s will be playing for a state championship against familiar foe in West champion Hoosac.
“We’re just excited to try and win a state championship,” Newhall said. “It happens to be against a team that knocked us out of it a year ago. That makes it a little bit more intriguing maybe, but for us we’re familiar with them. We played them in the season, played them maybe seven or eight times the past six or seven years. For us it’s about us and how we play.”
St. Mary’s and Hoosac will tip off Saturday (TBA) at the DCU Center in Worcester.
