Northmen spring into action late
Strong finish lifts N.S. to surprising win over Davies
LINCOLN — Based on Division III-North records alone, North Smithfield High wasn’t supposed to be able to hang with Davies Tech, especially on the road, on Thursday evening.
The Northmen carried a spotty 2-6 mark into the tilt, while the Patriots had captured 67 percent of their clashes.
Head coach Ariana Stanton nevertheless had faith in her troops to overcome their relative youth, and they delivered.
The visitors manufactured a 10-1 run late in regulation, squelching the Davies’ offense down the stretch, to collect a satisfying 51-46 come-from-behind triumph before a few dozen fans at Gaskin Alumni Hall.
After sophomore Samantha Baako drained a pretty baseline trey with 3:20 left to give the Pats what appeared to be a somewhat-comfortable 45-41 lead, NS frosh Alex Ledger netted a turnaround baseline jumper to put her squad in front, 47-46, with 2:06 remaining.
She then dropped a putback with 50.1 on the scoreboard clock, and senior co-captain Lorenza O’Donnell turned a steal into an easy layup for the game’s final bucket with 21.3 left. Davies tried in vain to spark a run. “We tell the girls all the time that when they’re down, ‘Don’t give up. Keep working the boards, stay calm and believe in yourselves,’ and they did,” Stanton grinned after the Northmen improved to 3-6 in league action and 3-8 overall. “These kids have been working so hard, they deserve something like this (to validate it). They really played like a team (Thursday night).
“Honestly, we’ve been focused on scoring because we’re so young,” she added. “Some of the girls have been timid putting the ball up; we don’t have a lot of true scorers, but we got it done down the stretch.”
Not surprisingly, stellar multi-sport athlete O’Donnell paced the victors with 22 points, as well as nine rebounds and four steals, while Ledger managed eight points, four boards and a steal; classmate Julia Dias seven points and five rebounds; senior co-captain Faith Jacobson four points, four boards and two steals; and junior Rachel Ferland only two points but five caroms.
For the Pats (8-4 overall, 6-4 league), senior captain Tiana DaSilva claimed 17 points, five thefts and five assists; classmate Maddie Bator eight points; sophomore Tanya Cooper five points and 10 boards; freshman Jenny Cruz six points and a team-high 14 rebounds; and sophomore Julie Desautel four points and 10 boards.
Thanks to four points from O’Donnell, NS jumped out to an early 6-2 lead in the opening 1:58, but Davies roared back with an 11-2 surge over the next 5:12 to snag the 13-8 cushion. The Northmen eventually regained the lead at 22-20 after O’Donnell hit a pair of foul shots, then a layup off a turnover with 1:54 left before the break.
The Patriots nevertheless went into halftime with the 24-23 advantage.
The two foes battled back and forth throughout most of the final session, with NS knotting it twice, the last time at 3131 following O’Donnell’s stop-and-pop bucket in the lane with 8:12 remaining.
Veteran mentor Joe Handy’s bunch needed a mere 1:46 to assemble a 9-4 flurry; when Cruz hit a putback and was fouled with 6:26 left, she missed the chance at the conventional three-point play, though the Pats led, 40-35.
As had been the case most of the evening, the Northmen continued to create turnovers (26 in all) – and overcome that four-point deficit with 3:20 remaining.
“When the officials called Tiana for her fourth foul with six minutes and change left, I had to take her out, and it affected our flow on offense,” Handy stated afterward. “We also went three-for-11 from the line, and missing free throws will kill you. We missed some layups late in the game, and that didn’t help, either.
“There’s no doubt that their freshman Alex Ledger was the difference-maker in this one,” he added. “She had six points in the last four minutes or so. We made some mistakes at the end, little things that we’re going to have to work on, like clock man- agement and protecting the ball. We had opportunities to foul late in the game and stop the clock, but we didn’t.
“I know we’ll bounce back; we just have to go back to work. We’re at Burrillville on Monday (7 p.m.), then host Blackstone Valley Prep on Wednesday (6:15) before we go to North Providence on Thursday (7 o’clock). It doesn’t get any easier, but we’ll head to practice and try to remedy the issues.”