MAPLE HILL 3-POINTERS DOOM GREENWICH, 49-41
GREENWICH, N.Y. » There are several mantras in basketball at all levels, ‘Defense wins championships’ and ‘Live by the 3 (pointer), die by the 3.’”
Maple Hill managed to do a little bit of both Tuesday night, avenging last season’s post-season loss to Greenwich and giving lone Wildcat senior Taylor Gerrain another game in her senior season.
No. 9 seeded Maple Hill (13-8 overall) saw five different players hit three-pointers on the night and caused enough turnovers to keep No. 8 Greenwich (12-8) from taking over with its first half pressure to survive and advance, 4941.
“The main thing was that Greenwich got us last year, let’s return the favor,” Maple Hill coach Seth Hendrick said. “We came out with a little more motivation, my senior, Taylor Gerrain, we didn’t want this to be her last game, and obviously no team wants that to happen. She played pretty good tonight also. It was a total team win.”
Gerrain finished with nine points on the night, all from inside the arc, she left the long distance success to her teammates, like Lydia Chittenden who knocked down three of the Wild-
cat’s eight on the night.
“We’ve got some pretty good shooters out there,” Hendrick said. “We got a couple of slashers and if we can drive and kick, that’s when we are at our best.
“We’re not a very good half-court transition team, but once we’re moving the ball, we drive and kick, that’s what we’re look for.”
On the year Maple Hill has seven players on the roster with at least one 3-pointer to their credit and the team has hit almost 100 this season.
Gerrain spent the night moving inside the paint and often giving up a shot under pressure and punching it back out beyond the arc for her teammates.
“I think we have a lot of faith in it,” Taylor Gerrain said. “Our program has always been like that, our
girls program has always relied a lot on the three and our rebounding definitely helps a lot. If we can get the boards if we don’t make it that definitely helps us.”
In the tight playoff contest the Wildcats built a 10 point lead with less than two minutes to go as they held the Witches scoreless for five minutes, but to Greenwich’s credit, Maple Hill took four minutes to score during the same stretch.
Witches Gabby Wiss scored from underneath and Marquita Gutasy stole the ball for an easy lay-up to cut the Wildcat lead to five with 48 seconds left and Molly Brophy hit the lone three of the night for Greenwich with 22 seconds left to make it a nail-bitter.
The game turned into a clock- stopping strategy and Maple Hills’ Paige Bleau hit four of six down the stretch to seal the postseason road win and extend Gerrain’s season.
“This was a really big win for me,” Gerrain said. “I feel like I’ve been here forever and my girls definitely realize that and they play for me and they tell me that they do. It really means a lot to me to have them do that.”
The Wildcats were also playing for their former school superintendent, Robert Horan, who died unexpectedly in July 2016.
“He was one of the first guys on the gym to say ‘ Hello girls, what’s going on and one of the last guys to in the gym to say ‘Good game, good, bad or even,’” Hendricks said. “His favorite word was ‘awesome,’ It’s a word we use with the Maple Hill Wildcats all the time, we’re awesome and I’m sure he’s looking down right now and probably had a little hand in the win tonight.”
For Greenwich and its coach, the season- ending win will be filed under disappointment and frustra-
tion for Coach Jason Slater.
‘ They had eight (threepointers) and we 16 twopoint field goals, the math doesn’t work very well and they got to the line, they out-hustled us, got to the line a little bit, more than we did,” Jason Slater said. “I thought we could have made a little bit of a run, we’ve won seven out of eight here to finish the season, had a great win over Mechanicville, got us moving a little bit and i thought we would kind of carry that momentum a little bit better. Not tonight.”