Spartans give Cavaliers a battle

Friday, January 8, 2010

Hollis/Brookline's Devin Longland tries to keep the ball away from a Milford defender during Tuesday's game.

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Milford's Ashley Federico tries to bring in a loose ball during Tuesday's game against Hollis/Brookline.

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Hollis/Brookline's Devin Longland tries to keep the ball away from a Milford defender during Tuesday's game.

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HOLLIS – Ah, if only high school girls basketball games were but 16 minutes long.

For the first half, Milford High School gave Hollis/Brookline everything it could handle on Tuesday night and showed the Cavaliers what an 0-3 team could do when players hustled constantly, rebounded tenaciously and always looked to throw a down-court outlet pass.

In the second half, H/B showed Milford what a 3-0 team needed to show in order to get to 4-0: an infusion of heart.

The Cavs got it and won going away, 58-39, thanks to a third quarter in which they outscored Milford 23-6 and dropped the Spartans to 0-4.

“A big part of this game is playing with heart,” said H/B coach Bob Murphy when asked what he said to his team when it went into the locker room tied at 24-24. “If you don’t have that, you’re going to play poorly, you’re gonna have an off night.

“We were getting outrebounded, we weren’t taking the shots we normally take, we weren’t reading the defense like we should have in the first half, and we were letting them go the length of the court, getting a lot of layups. If you go to the locker room and try to talk about 25 things, nobody remembers anything. So I try to go in and talk about two or three things and that’s it. One of them was rebounding, one of them was getting back on defense and the other one was bring your heart in the second half. And they brought it. I’m very happy with them.”

But Milford coach Ed Palladino used the word “heart,” too, to describe his girls and he had every right to.

“We always play with heart,” he said.

And his kids did.

Even when they were down by 20, they were scrapping and fighting for every ball and still trying to run fast breaks right up until the final buzzer.

“Great first half,” he said. “I was very proud of the way we came out and played.”

But, Palladino said, “I was very impressed with coach Murphy’s team. But that second half … we talked about, at halftime, that we had to come out with the same intensity as the first half and play equally as good or better and hopefully (Julie) Stopera wouldn’t go off underneath the boards on us.”

He was speaking of H/B junior forward Julia Stopera who, at 5-11, was the biggest player on the court, and certainly one of the strongest. She would be hard to stop at any time but Milford had an extra problem: injuries.

“We had (Taylor) Sacco and Sara (Curtis), who were somewhat injured in the first half, and they weren’t able to stay on the floor long at any one time,” Palladino said.

Early on, it looked like the Cavs wouldn’t have much trouble with Milford, racing off to an 8-2 lead with great ball movement, particularly on the perimeter.

But the Spartans hung tough and ended the first quarter down 13-10.

In the second, Milford tied the score at 16-16 almost halfway through, fell behind 21-17, then went on a 7-3 run to end the half at 24-24.

More than a few baskets came when the Cavs failed to hustle back on defense and Milford rebounders threw outlet passes to wide open teammates racing down the court. The Spartans didn’t always hit the shots at the other end, but they had them to take.

But in the third, the game got away from Milford. H/B went on a 7-1 run to lead 31-25, its biggest lead since the first, then outscored Milford 16-5 the rest of the quarter, including a 3-pointer by Katie Stopera with only a second left.

But Milford didn’t roll over and actually outscored the Cavs 11-9 in the final stanza and kept up its running game, still trying to get behind the Cavs’ defense and sometimes pulling it off.

“We came in with our heads up and we left with our heads up,” Palladino said. “We’ll make the adjustments and hopefully start reaping some of the benefits from those adjustments.

“But, great first half. I was very proud of them.”