Mounties claim city showdown
MSC jumps out to 16-2 lead; O’Hagan leads Woonsocket back into contest
WOONSOCKET — The Mount St. Charles girls basketball team won the first eight minutes and final four minutes of Monday night’s Division II intracity showdown with Woonsocket.
Alyissia O’Hagan, Jaira Colon and the upstart Novans won the other 24 minutes, but as Woonsocket coach Shawn Harris frustratingly pointed out, the game is won in the first four and final four minutes of the game.
Mount St. Charles senior point guard Julia Laquerre (team-high 16 points) helped lead the road side jump out to a 14-point lead just eight minutes into the contest. The Villa Novans cut the gap to as few as four late in the second half, but the Mounties executed enough down the stretch to take a 48-42 victory back up Logee Street.
“We ran the plays for the most part,” Laquerre said. “After we jumped ahead, they started to play better defense and figured out who our shooters were. We got frazzled a little bit. We needed to realize our roles and we needed to figure out what we needed to do. The Johnston game gave us the chance to figure it out.”
“It was a good road win in front of a tough crowd,” Mount St. Charles coach Ray Leveille said. “Give Woonsocket credit, they played hard. We have problems putting the ball in the hoop, so we’re going to play these ugly, drag-them-out games where we have to do our best to execute and get easy baskets.”
Woonsocket (1-2, 1-1 Division II) started the league season with an impressive victory over Pilgrim Friday night, but the Villa Novans fell behind 16-2 in the opening eight minutes, as they allowed Laquerre to score nine early points.
O’Hagan delivered a game-high 19 points and Colon added 11 to close the gap to just four with 4:48 left in the game. The Novans even had chances to make it a onepossession game, but missed free throws and jumpers allowed the Mounties to escape with a victory.
“It’s how you start the first four minutes and how you finish the final four minutes,” an upbeat Harris said. “If you noticed, the first four minutes of the first half we were out of synch and we didn’t have any energy. There was no intensity, no fire and no fight that we showed in the first two games.
“The second half, we came alive. Like I told my girls, we can’t be a one-half team like we were last year. We proved that we were different in the first two games, but Mount came out with good pressure early and we panicked.”
Mount St. Charles (1-2, 1-1 Division II) needed to respond after last week’s loss to Johnston where the Mounties watched an early lead turn into a blowout loss to a Panther team with two talented guards.
The other good sign for Leveille is that Laquerre received some offensive help. Katie Lynch, who scored a big basket late in the game, added 13 points. Shea Kelliher chipped in with nine and Amelia Fadden added four.
“We’re trying to grow our bench a little bit so we can get a little deeper and keep that intensity going,” Leveille said. “The hope is that as the season goes along with can go from being seven deep to 10 and we can give some people some rest. We want to put ball pressure on for 32 minutes.”
The contest was actually tied at 2 in the early going before Laquerre and the Mounties went on a 14-0 run to take a lead they would never relinquish. At one point during the run, Laquerre scored seven straight points to take the score from 9-2 to 16-2.
Laquerre did that with two fouls, as Leveille opted to keep his star in the game for over four minutes with a pair of fouls. The senior wound up finishing with just three fouls.
“This is my third year with her and she’s a four-year varsity starter, so she knows how to play with fouls,” Leveille said. “She knows how to rein it in even though she is very aggressive.”
The Villa Novans won the final seven minutes of the half, but they still trailed by 12 points. Harris clearly made sure the Novans guarded Laquerre in the second half because she only had one bucket for the first 13 minutes.
O’Hagan, on the other hand, scored 11 points in the second half to close the gap. Kaila Acheson knocked down a 3-pointer to cut Woonsocket’s deficit to just six with six minutes to go, and the deficit was just four after back-to-back baskets by Taylor Webster and O’Hagan.
But, Laquerre knocked down a pair of free throws and made a basket moments later to put the game away.
“This loss is ok,” Harris said. “I will take this loss. With that being said, it’s only the second league game and hopefully we learn our lesson. We have to improve and that’s why we’re coming back to practice tomorrow ready to learn.”