L’ville picks up victory over Pingry
LAWRENCEVILLE » Heading into this weekend’s Mid-Atlantic Prep League Tournament at the Hill School, the Lawrenceville School girls basketball team was hoping for a challenge Wednesday.
The Big Red got just that from Prep A contender Pingry.
Two days ahead of the MAPL Tournament, the Big Blue visited Lavino Field House and put a lot of pressure on Lawrenceville, which was trying to celebrate its Senior Day.
Yet, trailing at the end of the first two quarters and with five minutes remaining in the third, head coach Grey Simpson’s squad had to reach a little deeper.
It was exactly what they wanted. The home team turned up its defense and its offense to overtake head coach Courtney Tierney’s club for a 62-50 win. It was L’ville’s 14th victory of the 2019-20 campaign, one better than it had a year ago, with three more tournaments looming.
“We felt like this was our last chance to redeem ourselves on our home floor,” Victoria Dugan said.
Dugan, a 5-foot-9 forward, was one of five seniors honored before the game. She and her classmates took it personally when Pingry took a 13-11 lead at the end of one quarter and still led, 25-23, at the break.
“We were playing at their pace. We had to change that,” Dugan said. “We need to be fast-paced to play our best basketball.”
Along with senior starters Heaven Figueroa, Maxima Molgat and Jeree Murray, Dugan helped her team turn the tempo into its favor.
Dugan converted a three-point play 1:08 into the third quarter to pull Lawrenceville within, 27-26. Then, when Figueroa came up with one of her six steals and led Dugan with one of her eight assists 48 seconds later, she scored to give the Big Red their first lead since the first quarter.
Pingry’s Bella Goodwin (11 points) came right back with a 3-point field goal to put the visitors up, 30-28. But L’ville sophomore Taylor Simpson (15 points) answered with a trey of her own with 4:45 remaining to put the Big Red in the lead to stay.
Lawrenceville’s defense limited the Big Blue to four points over the final five minutes of the third quarter, while the home team reeled off 16 points into the first minute of the fourth quarter. Six-foot-one sophomore forward Gabrielle Hemenes returned to the floor for the second half of the third quarter and scored all seven of her points in a four-anda-half minute span to give the Big Red a 44-34 lead with 7:37 to play.
“They are a tough team. It was a good challenge for us,” Grey Simpson said. “This was a great game at this time of year to help us try to put it all together.”
After scoring 23 points in the whole first half, L’ville came back to score 22 in the fourth quarter alone. Molgat led the way with 16 points, six of those in the final stanza, to challenge Pingry senior Alyson Feeley (17 points) for game-high honors. Dugan joined Molgat and Taylor Simpson in double figures with 12 points.
“Every year, we’ve gotten progressively better,” said Dugan, a four-year varsity player. “This season, we’ve been seeing all our hard work coming out on the court.”
The Big Red are the second seed for this weekend’s MAPL Tourney. They await the winner of Friday’s game between sixth-seeded Mercersburg Academy and thirdseeded Hun for a 3:45 p.m. game at Hill Saturday.
After that, the challenges continue in the Prep A Tournament, where Lawrenceville also figures to receive a high seed, and a season-ending tournament at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. PINGRY (50)
Goodwin 3-3-11, Volpe 3-2-8, Schwarz 3-0-8, Keller 3-0-6, Feeley 6-4-17, Maultsby 0-0-0. Totals — 18-9-50. LAWRENCEVILLE (62)
Figueroa 3-0-6, Dugan 5-2-12, Molgat 6-4-16, Murray 0-0-0, Gillen 2-0-4, Bunnell 0-0-0, Balewitz 0-0-0, Taunque 1-0-2, Hemenes 2-3-7, Simpson 5-3-15.
Totals — 24-12-62.
Pingry (12-7) 1312916—50 Lawrenceville(14-9) 11 12 17 22 — 62
3-point goals: Goodwin 2, Schwarz 2, Feeley (P), Simpson 2 (L).