Four-peat for Fenway girls
With a shortened season and limited practices, Fenway still had the mindset to go out and defend its three straight Boston City League titles on the road.
The Panthers put together a strong defensive game plan down the stretch to upend previously undefeated O’Bryant, 42-37, at the Tigers home gym Saturday afternoon to bring their fourth straight City League championship back home.
“I feel like, right now, I can’t take all the credit for it,” said Fenway coach Caitlin Fenn Cordaro about the win. “We haven’t had enough practices or enough games. The girls deserve all the credit for this right now. They are carrying on things that they’ve learned in the past and from (John) Rice in the past. It’s good to be able to hold onto it because it is
nerve-wracking to be like, ‘Oh my god, this legacy. I hope I don’t ruin it.’ Luckily, I didn’t ruin it.”
With a 30-25 deficit early in the fourth, Fenway (12-1) closed out the contest on a 17-7 run with four different players scoring in the frame.
“It’s all a mental game,” City League MVP Kayana Armbrister said about the run down the stretch. “Soon as you get on the court, you have to get out of your head and into the game. That’s what you need to do.”
Armbrister (10 rebounds, three blocks) did most of her damage in the first half as she scored 11 of her gamehigh 16 points. She had nine straight to turn a 4-2 hole midway through the first into an 11-4 lead just two minutes into the second.
After that stretch, O’Bryant (10-1) took advantage of 10 turnovers for the Panthers with a box-and-one defense on Armbrister to take a 20-14 lead at the half with a 16-3 run as freshman Jasmine Cox scored 10 of her teamhigh 13 in the frame.
“Our first half, that isn’t how we played all year,” Cordaro said. “They were frazzled. … There were no magic words (at the half ). It was just, ‘You guys aren’t playing your game.’ ”
To start the third, Fenway flipped a switch and used a 9-0 run to go up 23-20 before Armbrister had to sit down with her fourth foul with 3:26 to go. The Tigers used this time to go on a 6-2 run, capped by a Cox layup, to lead 26-25 after three.
“I think giving her that time off did give it a little chance to calm down and take the break,” Cordaro said about Armbrister’s presence in the fourth with the foul trouble. “Having her out and holding our position — not losing a lot of ground — I think it gave the other girls some confidence, too. … When (Armbrister) came in, they were ready for her and were able to play with her when she came back. That shows how well we play as a team together.”
In the fourth, the Tigers scored the first four points before the Panthers knotted it up 30-30 on an Armbrister layup as she was fouled. She dove after her rebound on the missed free throw and forced it off a Tigers defender. This led to a three-point play for Janaiya Printemps to put Fenway in front 33-30 with 3:07 left.
“That was a huge momentum-builder for sure,” said Cordaro about the hustle play that gave the Panthers the lead for good.