RallyNorth.net

Sat, Feb 29, 2020 02:00 PM @ Central Catholic

Team	1	2	3	4	Final
Andover	14	18	14	17	63
Central Catholic	14	7	18	16	55

Andover stuns Central in North quarters

LAWRENCE — Answer the following question.

You’re in the Division 1 North tournament playing against your biggest rival, who also happens to be the two-time defending sectional champions, and you’re in a hostile gym. Your rival also hasn’t lost a single game in your league in three seasons, has beat you twice already this season, and is getting an emotional lift by welcoming back arguably their best player, a Division 1 college recruit.

What do you do?

Well, if you’re the Andover High girls basketball team, the answer is ignore it all.

“This is the last time we could see our rival, so we definitely wanted to destroy them,” said senior Shea Krekorian after her Golden Warriors stunned No. 3 Central Catholic, 63-55, in Saturday’s Division 1 North quarterfinals. “We were just really disciplined at practice all week, and, yeah, we came ready to play.”

With how the Warriors played, it must have been one heck of a week of practice.

“None of us were ready for the season to end,” said fellow senior co-captain Brooke Hardock. “Like coach (Alan) Hibino just said, our last practice isn’t going to be anytime soon.”

The packed house piled in the gym on 300 Hampshire St. was not expecting this.

And they really didn’t expect it when they saw Nadeshka Bridgewater — with tape to support her broken right hand — going through pre-game warmups. The electric senior had been out of the lineup for the past few weeks, but the Raiders had played very well against some of the state’s top teams (i.e. Bridgewater-Raynham and Cathedral) without her.

She wasn’t expected back this early, and even had to have a teammate tie her shoe for her when it came undone after checking into the game late in the first quarter.

“I thought she gave them a great boost,” said Hibino of the Merrimack recruit, who scored all 10 of her points in the second half.

But it wasn’t to be. Not on this afternoon.

Central Catholic (18-4), ever with the heart of a champion, kept on fighting. Like when Claire Finney made back-to-back buckets to cut it to 48-45 with 4:33 left, or when Finney and Claudia Porto hit two straight 3s to cut it to 55-51 with 2:22 left.

But Andover (16-6) took every jab in the chin, shook it off and kept swinging. Freshman Anna Foley made a couple of layups down the stretch, and Tatum Shaw iced it from the free throw line to deliver the final haymaker.

“The resolve and the will of the Lady Warriors tonight triumphed all,” said Hibino. “The girls, I just told them in the locker room, they executed the plan 10 out of 10. They never wavered, they never doubted, they just bought in and believed together.

“And that’s what it takes to beat a team of that caliber. Central is fantastic.”

And now, the No. 6-seeded Warriors are on to the sectional semifinals.

“It’s awesome,” said Krekorian, who finished with 15 points. “There’s no better feeling than beating Central. And knocking them out of the tournament, I mean, that’s unreal.”

A 14-14 game after the first quarter, the Golden Warriors executed perfectly in the second to take a 32-21 halftime lead.

Central, led by 20 points from senior star Emily Downer, kept clawing back in the second half, but the Warriors always got the clutch bucket to silence the hostile crowd — if even just momentarily.

And it wasn’t like the Warriors relied on one player.

Shaw led the way with a team-high 16 points, followed by Krekorian with 15 and both Hardock and Foley with 10. The 6-2 freshman Foley also added 12 rebounds, and classmate Amelia Hanscom was poised and calm in just her second postseason game as well and finished with 7 points and 9 boards.

“It’s validation of the hours of work they’ve put in,” said Hibino, whose club snapped a four-game losing streak to Central, including a 60-37 setback on Jan. 28. “It takes every girl, 1 through 14, to believe and trust that we can win. Our bench was awesome for us today in giving us that positive energy to keep going.”

The Warriors walked into that gym Saturday confident that their season wasn’t going to end.

They were right.

And even after the game, there was no sense from the team that it’s going to end anytime soon.

“Obviously we want to celebrate our wins,” said Krekorian. “But we need to realize we have a lot more games to go.” 

Andover 63, Central Catholic 55

Division 1 North quarterfinals

ANDOVER (63): Shea Krekorian 6-0-15, Brooke Hardock 4-0-10, Anna Foley 3-4-10, Tatum Shaw 5-4-16, Amelia Hanscom 3-1-7, Morgan Shirley 2-0-5, Marissa Kobelski 0-0-0. Totals 23-9-63

CENTRAL CATHOLIC (55): Claudia Porto 2-0-6, Claire Finney 3-2-9, Adrianna Niles 0-2-2, Lily Angluin 2-2-8, Emily Downer 7-4-20, Nadeshka Bridgewater 4-0-10, Julianna Porto 0-0-0, Cailyn Scharneck 0-0-0. Totals 18-10-55

3-pointers: ANDOVER — Krekorian 3, Hardock 2, Shaw 2, Shirley; CENTRAL — C. Porto 2, Angluin 2, Downer 2, Bridgewater 2, Finney

Andover (16-6): 14 18 14 17 — 63

Central Catholic (18-4): 14  7 18 16 — 55