Novans earn No. 3 seed
Woonsocket pulls away from No. 1 Burrillville
WOONSOCKET — The Woonsocket girls basketball team knows it has a significant speed advantage over Division III regular-season champion Burrillville, but in the first meeting between the teams in December, the Broncos negated that advantage by hitting the boards and going to the foul line.
Wednesday, with the Novans playing for a bye and the No. 3 seed in the upcoming playoffs, Woonsocket made a concerted effort to hold its own in the paint and get out into transition whenever possible.
Alyssa Simpson and the Broncos kept the precocious Novans at bay for the first nine minutes of the first half, but Woonsocket started rebounding and running. Freshmen Navaeh Caro and Bella Mencarini combined for 31 points, while Abby Desjardin scored all eight of her points in the first seven minutes of the second half to secure a 60-39 victory at Savaria Gymnasium.
“We just picked it up together in the second half,” Desjardin said after the Novans went on a 27-8 run over 16 minutes to blowv
open a close game. “We’re better when we work together, so it’s easier to score when everyone is in a better spot. We’ve been practicing rebounding a lot lately and that’s what we’ve been emphasizing because that’s what we lack. Everyone stuck to it and we wanted the ball more.”
“A lot of the difference between the first [nonleague] game and this one is we played better defense,” Woonsocket coach Mike Cahill said. “Even though they shot some free throws in the second half, they just lived on the foul line the first time. We boxed out and played defense with our feet a little better. We’re also a better team than
we were in December.”
Woonsocket (14-3 Division III) will host either No. 6 Central or No. 11 Toll Gate in the quarterfinals Tuesday night. The Novans, who don’t have a senior on the roster making senior night moot, have very little playoff experience, but they believe they can make a run in the D-III tournament after handing the Broncos just their second defeat of the season.
“I think we’re contenders and I think we have a very good chance in the tournament if our team sticks together and works together. I do think we have a chance to win,” Desjardin said.
Burrillville (15-2 Division III) wasn’t playing for
anything other than being the outright regular-season champion. The loss means the Broncos have to share the title with talented North Smithfield. Burrillville will host either No. 8 Lincoln or No. 9 Mt. Hope in the quarterfinals Tuesday night at the Broncodome.
Wednesday, Bronco senior forward Alyssa Simpson produced a team-high 15 points, while center Molly Brown and guard Isabel Costa each added five points.
“We did a lot of bad things and we have to clean up a lot of things,” Burrillville coach Sam Stanton said. “You know what though? I’d rather this happen now than in the playoffs. If anything this is moti
vation going into the playoffs. We couldn’t shoot the ball into the Atlantic Ocean tonight and that was tough. This was just about our shooting and our confidence.”
Simpson gave the Broncos their lone lead of the night when she grabbed an offensive rebound and scored to make it 10-8 with 7:30 left in the half. And then the Novans responded with a 9-0 run to take a lead they would never relinquish. Caro, who scored a game-high 18 points, Rushie Vilane and Mencarini sparked the run to give the Novans a 17-10 lead.
Burrillville went halftime with a 25-14 advantage, but Brown cut the deficit to nine on a quick hoop. That’s when
Desjardin, who was scoreless in the first half, took over the game. The junior went on a personal 4-0 run to increase the lead to 13 and she scored four more points to make it 35-18.
“I think we played well, so I’ll take this,” Cahill said. “If we play like this in the playoffs, I’ll like our chances. For us to be successful in the playoffs, we can’t put teams on the foul line and we have to rebound. The teams we have struggled with – North Smithfield, Burrillville in the tournament and Tolman – we put them on the line and struggled to rebound.”