BOSTON — The ability to adapt a game plan on the fly isn’t something many teams can pull off, but in Wednesday’s Division 3 state semifinal at the TD Garden, the St. Mary’s girls basketball team had no choice.
The Spartans offense just wasn’t going in the first half but somehow they found a way to get even with South champion Rockland, 18-18, before the halftime break.
Something had to change on the offensive side, and that was very clear to the St. Mary’s players in the locker room.
“We just had to keep playing very intense basketball,” junior forward Maiya Bergdorf said. “We had to snap out of it and get to how we play because we were very flustered I think in the begining with what (Rockland) was throwing at us. We kind of just tried to force everything. Then in the second half we kind of just took what we got.”
Bergdorf didn’t get many easy chances in the paint Wednesday, but she made the most of what she could do. The Spartans were able to rely on two constants during the game, a suffocating defense and Bergdorf (13 points, team-high 12 rebounds) coming down with some huge boards.
Up against a pair of capable Rockland forwards, the key for Bergdorf was staying confident.
“(Head coach Jeff) Newhall did a really good job of keeping me up,” Bergdorf said. “Saying stuff like, ‘good job, it’ll fall, next one is yours,’ stuff like that. That’s what I feel like everyone needs on the court if your shots aren’t falling. It’s about the next one, it’ll start falling eventually. That’s what he kept telling me and I just kept going up with the same intensity that I had been all game.”
The key shift in the game came in the third quarter. Newhall decided to put four guards on the floor, something that was far from the norm for the Spartans, and it paid it off.
“We went to a four-out-one offense, which quite frankly we don’t have, we just put it together,” Newhall said. “And Maiya did a great job. I know she missed some shots inside but I thought she opened up the offense. Then, you hit a couple shots and it puts (Rockland) on notice.”
The Spartans hit seven 3-pointers on the day, two from senior captain Olivia Matela. Matela, whose nine points were second only to only Bergdorf, was no stranger to the Garden atmosphere after playing on the parquet last season.
“This was my second time playing here,” Matela said. “Obviously it’s very exhilarating. The big crowd and the big arena really got our energy moving. Which is definitely what we need in these high intensity games.”
And once the offense got rolling in the third quarter that energy showed. St. Mary’s never took their foot off the gas and became practically unstoppable in a 21-point fourth quarter.
“We play a very fast paced game so when our coaches tell us to slow it down sometimes we’re kind of hesitant about it but sometimes we listen,” Bergdorf said. “We were in the flow and we just wanted to keep going, so we just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And obviously it turned out how we wanted.”
Fittingly, it was Bergdorf and Matela who came through with the dagger to ice the game for St. Mary’s. A desperate Bulldogs team had just scored four-straight points to cut the Spartans lead to five before Bergdorf came down the court and knocked down a 3-pointer. Matela followed with a three of her own and put the Spartans ahead 44-33, the biggest lead for either team at that point.
The back-to-back threes may have come just midway through the fourth but it was clear St. Mary’s wasn’t going to accept anything less than a win to move on to the Division 3 state championship.
