Harpursville Central High School | Archive | March, 2014

Top-ranked Harpursville girls fall in Class C state basketball semifinals

TROY — The preeminent player got hers. The superior team advanced.

So it went Saturday at Hudson Valley Community College, where Hoosic Valley’s girls dealt top-ranked Harpursville its first loss of the winter, 55-44 in a Class C state basketball semifinal.

The Rensselaer County squad executed exquisitely on both ends of the floor and assumed the lead for keeps when the first of its eight 3-point goals dropped in 4½ minutes into the matinee. The difference was nine points through one quarter and 13 late in the third before a Miranda Drummond-fueled surge drew the Hornets within six midway through the fourth.

Thereafter, two 3-pointers by the Indians in an 84-second span locked it up for the perennial Section 2 heavyweight, which will seek a second state title in three seasons Sunday against Chautauqua Lake.

Drummond’s final high school season ended with a Grade-A 25-point, 11-rebound, five-assist outing in the face of superb team defense employed by a Hoosic Valley squad that sensibly and predictably identified her as Priorities Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

The Indians’ Lauren Madigan — who guarded Drummond — Laura McGreevey and Alyssa Paul scored 18, 16 and 13 points, respectively, for the winners, and teamed for the eight 3-point goals.

The combination of quality gal-to-gal defense, offensive rebounding and ball movement that so frequently set up either a layup or available 3-pointer made for too tall a task for the Hornets.

“There weren’t any open spots,” Harpursville coach Kurt Ehrensbeck said of the Indians’ defense. “In order to get shots we had to create them every time.”

“They play defense very well. It seemed like they knew every move I was going to make,” Drummond said.

On the other end, try as they might the Hornets simply could not defend Hoosic Valley with anything approaching sustained success. If the Indians were not bagging a 3-pointer, they were driving too often free to the goal or cutting backdoor and accepting a feed behind beaten defenders.

So effective was the “home” team that, late in the first half, Harpursville opted for a 2-3 zone alignment rather than its preferred person-to-person resistance.

“We were getting beat to the basket so badly in the first half,” Ehrensbeck said. “I didn’t want to go zone but we had no choice.”

Hoosic Valley closed the first quarter with a 14-3 burst that made for an 18-9 advantage, and led by 27-19 after a horn-beating 3-point goal by Paul off a soundly designed baseline inbound play. The crisp ball movement was artistic and the shot from near the corner swished cleanly as time expired

That key turnabout followed a deep 3-pointer by Drummond and a free throw from Shelby Medovich that had Harpursville within five.

“That shot before halftime killed us,” Ehrensbeck said. “We had told people, if somebody goes to your corner you’ve got to step over and get out there. We didn’t, we got pinned on it. When you can knock down a corner three at the buzzer — it was a great play and a great shot.”

Drummond willed her way into take-over mode late in the third period with her team down a dozen.

Beginning with a free throw with 95 seconds left in the quarter, she poured in 16 of her team’s final 19 points despite defensive tactics long on torso-to-torso contact as well as help for Madigan at all times.

“The rule was, if 32 is on your side you stay high on your help,” Indians coach Walt Dorman said. “If 32 is on a wing by herself, the post player came up, we give help off the post. Make her shoot, just make her shoot out there. That girl is just a tremendous player.”

That 9½ minutes of won’t-be-stopped by Drummond featured some strong work on the offensive glass to go with a few other catchy individual efforts that had first-time observers digging into the pile of adjectives.

OK, that banked 3-pointer from atop the arc late in the third quarter was a gift, but aside from that everything Drummond produced was earned.

There was the duck through defenders to the rim and off-handed finish with no backboard assistance, and the dribbling probe of the perimeter until finding a wee slice of freedom and firing for three on the right wing.

There was the defensive rebound and end-to-end rush for two and, for her final points in a Harpursville uniform, one final grind for an offensive rebound, put-back and free throw to boot.

“I thought we had a lot of character in the second half,” Ehrensbeck said. “We put a good run on and then they banked in a three and they got another three.

“When they’re making three’s from 25 feet, I surrender. I mean, we were still trying to get out on them but, you’ve got to hand it to them when they can hit 23- and 25-footers in this building.”

A revealing statistical tale showed Hoosic Valley with 15 offensive rebounds to Harpursville’s four, and the winners closed with 16 assists against a mere four turnovers.

 

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Harpursville Girls Clinch Spot in Class C State Basketball Semifinals

SYRACUSE — Harpursville never trailed in a showdown between the state’s top two Class C girls basketball teams Saturday, earning a return trip to the final four with a 53-46 victory over Little Falls in a New York State Public High School Athletic Association quarterfinal at Onondaga Community College.

Senior guard Miranda Drummond scored 28 points and junior Shelby Medovich added 15 to help add a regional title to top-ranked Harpursville’s ever-growing trophy case.

The Hornets are headed to Troy for the final four for the third time in the last four seasons. They lost in the championship games in 2011 and 2013.

“We’re just looking forward to going back to states. We’ve worked so hard to get where we are now,” Drummond said. “This year we want to win a state championship. We’re not going back to lose. This is our No. 1 goal.”

Harpursville (23-0) will play sixth-ranked Hoosic Valley of Section 2 in a semifinal at 2:15 p.m. Saturday at Hudson Valley Community College. Hoosic Valley was a 39-27 winner over Northern Adirondack in their quarterfinal Saturday.

Hannah Becker scored 13 points for second-ranked Little Falls, which lost for the first time in 23 games. Kelli Shepardson and Gen Schoff scored 12 each for the Section 3 champs.

The Hornets scored the game’s first eight points and built their lead to 20 in the third quarter before withstanding a minor Mounties surge late. Little Falls got as close as six with 20 seconds to play.

“We just knew this was going to be a good game. Both teams undefeated,” said the St. Bonaventure-bound Drummond, who came in averaging 26.2 points this season. “We studied them hard and went over to our coach’s house and we watched them play in their sectional championship. We just knew they were going to be good and had to come out and challenge them.”

Drummond scored 20 points in the first half to help Harpursville to a 34-19 halftime lead, but the rest of the team also made its presence felt on the offensive end.

“We struggled scoring the ball in (the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena) in the Section 4 final (against Lansing),” Harpursville coach Kurt Ehrensbeck said. “These guys mixed it up a lot and we had some trouble with some of their stuff. We figured it out and some of those guys stepped in and made some shots, but Miranda was fantastic today.”

Drummond and Medovich combined for 11 of Harpursville’s 13 points in the third quarter, including two layups from Medovich set up by impressive passes from Drummond from the perimeter.

Little Falls had an 11-2 run late in the third quarter thanks to some turnovers from its pressure defense. The Mounties clawed within 49-41 with 4:35 to go but were limited to just one field goal — a 3-pointer from Amy Hart that cut the lead to 51-44 with 1:27 left — the rest of the night.

Drummond and Medovich each made one of two foul shots in the final 28 seconds to keep the lead comfortable.

“We’re not super deep, so I decided to take a timeout and give them a little breather and let them refocus,” Ehrensbeck said. “After one of the plays we had they were kind of chirping a little bit when we turned the ball over, so I wanted to calm them down a little bit. We talk all the time about the difference between playing not to lose and playing to win. I think after that timeout they played to win and not just to blow the lead.”

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Hornets Repeat as Section Champions

Harpursville’s girls gained repeat entry into Class C state basketball playoffs Saturday by dealing Lansing a 44-33 loss in an oddly low-scoring Section 4 title game at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.

Section IV Champs

Miranda Drummond’s game-high 24 points included seven of the Hornets’ 11 in the final quarter despite some shaky free throw shooting, and teammate Tatiana Sosnowsky added 13.

Next comes a quarterfinal matchup of 22-0 squads when Harpursville lines up against Section 3 champion Little Falls on March 8 at Onondaga Community College.

Lansing closed its season with an 18-3 record, led by a brilliant 21-point effort by guard Shea McCartney — but no teammate added more than four points.

The Bobcats did not achieve a two-digit scoreboard reading until 3:37 remained in the first half, and their 20th point was logged five minutes into the third period.

Nevertheless, it was a mere 34-28 Harpursville advantage a minute into the final quarter when Lansing’s Kala Mattoon made a steal high on the perimeter and handled the rest of the way for a goal.

Harpursville then missed two free throws, spent a timeout and — out of that stoppage — turned over the ball on a shot-clock violation. The next points came from Drummond, who fluked her way into possession of a free ball and converted inside to make it 36-28 with five minutes remaining.

Lansing drew within five when McCartney pulled up off the dribble and craftily banked home a mid-range shot, drew contact and converted from the line with 4:40 remaining. Twin sister Maura tacked on a goal in transition and the Bobcats were within 36-33 with 4:02 remaining.

Do note, however, Lansing’s point total at that juncture, because it wouldn’t budge until the final horn signaled conclusion of their season.

Sosnowsky put the third-seeded Hornets on top by 38-33 with a pair of nothing-but-nylon free throws, and a mid-ranger from the baseline by Holly Henry — off Sosnowsky’s set-up — stretched it to 40-33 with 2:32 to play.

“That was huge,” Hornets coach Kurt Ehrensbeck said of Henry’s lone goal of the afternoon. “She’s just a special kid, she has no fear. I tell kids where their zones are, that was in her zone so she shoots it.

“It’s funny what a difference one basket can make, and she’s had a bunch of those for us.”

The remainder of scoring belonged to Drummond on 4-for-6 free throw shooting that left her 5-for-10 in the quarter and 14-for-21 all told. She’d entered the game averaging 37.7 per Section 4 tournament game, and despite the drop-off was nonetheless the biggest difference in this one.

“We just didn’t do a very good job with her, she was on the line a lot,” Bobcats coach Stu Dean said. “Give her credit, she’s a great player.”

“Miranda came to the forefront (late), got the ball, was pretty composed,” Ehrensbeck said. “I knew when she had the ball in her hands that they weren’t going to take it from her.”

Harpursville, a state finalist last winter with Drummond an all-tournament selection, led by 10-4 after the first quarter and by 18-8 when Drummond ducked down the lane and smoothly finished with left-handed, sans backboard assistance, midway into the second.

But with Shea McCartney closing a nine-point quarter, the Bobcats were within 20-15 at halftime. McCartney’s goals that quarter came on three penetrations to the rim and a pull-up jump shot from the wing in transition. Lansing’s other bucket that quarter was on a reverse layup by Maura McCartney.

Shea, however, was assessed a third foul late in the first half and a fourth 27 seconds into the fourth quarter.

“We had (first-half) scoring chances that we just didn’t convert on,” Dean said. “I just felt like if we were making baskets we’d have been up at the half.

“First half we missed opportunities offensively, and in the second half we just had some bad possessions offensively where we either (a) didn’t get a shot or (b) had the wrong people taking shots.”

Ehrensbeck said: “We told the girls, the Arena’s a tough place to shoot it if you’ve never been there. We got fortunate that they were missing some outside shots.”

 

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