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Tiverton senior guard Samantha Bettencourt, right, gets out of the way of Mount Saint Charles junior guard Ava Laquerre, #5, as she gets ready to put in a layup during Monday night’s Division II quarterfinal-round game in the Mounties’ gym. The Mounties, who improved to 16-3 by posting a 51-43 win, were scheduled to face West Warwick in Wednesday night’s semifinals at East Providence High.
Mount Saint Charles Academy junior forward Emma Roberts, left, gets ready to put in a layup as she is heavily guarded by Tiverton's Samantha Gacioch during Monday night's Division II quarterfinal-round game. Roberts scored 13 points and added seven rebounds and five blocked shots to help lead the Mounties to a 51-43 victory.
Tiverton senior guard Samantha Bettencourt, right, gets out of the way of Mount Saint Charles junior guard Ava Laquerre, #5, as she gets ready to put in a layup during Monday night’s Division II quarterfinal-round game in the Mounties’ gym. The Mounties, who improved to 16-3 by posting a 51-43 win, were scheduled to face West Warwick in Wednesday night’s semifinals at East Providence High.
Mount Saint Charles Academy junior forward Emma Roberts, left, gets ready to put in a layup as she is heavily guarded by Tiverton's Samantha Gacioch during Monday night's Division II quarterfinal-round game. Roberts scored 13 points and added seven rebounds and five blocked shots to help lead the Mounties to a 51-43 victory.
WOONSOCKET – The Mount St. Charles Academy girls’ basketball team again got off to a slow start in its Division II quarterfinal-round game on Monday night at home against an upset-minded opponent, but the 3rd-seeded Mounties came back strong over the final three quarters to defeat 11th-seeded Tiverton, 51-43.
The Mounties, who improved to 16-3 with this win, were back in action in Wednesday night’s semifinals at East Providence High against 2nd-seeded West Warwick, which handed Mount its first loss of the season, 59-57, back on Jan. 16.
Entering that game, the Mounties were hoping to avoid another slow start, which not only plagued them on Monday night, but also in their regular-season finale against Cumberland. After putting together an eight-game win streak, Mount watched Cumberland rattle off an 11-0 run midway through the first half before coming away for a 40-29 victory that put the Clippers into the playoffs.
Back in action for the first time in seven nights, the Mounties again fell in a hole quickly, as the Tigers scored the game’s first seven points. But the Mounties came back to cut their deficit to a basket, 9-7, at the end of the first quarter, and then they took charge of the game in the second.
“We have to do something about these slow starts,” Mount head coach Ed Cunanan said. “We might have been a little nervous and that’s natural. We played that way against Cumberland, and maybe we were all just a little on edge.”
“But this team knows that it feeds off its defense,” he continued, “and once we started to warm up and play a little bit of defense, that led to some easy baskets, loosened us up, and got us into the game.”
In the second quarter, the Mounties scored eight of the first nine points, as junior forward Emma Roberts tied the score with a basket and sophomore forward Addie Stojanowski added two more.
The game soon turned into a physical matchup that led to foul trouble, but the Mounties, who took a 28-19 lead at halftime, did not back down. Senior guard Ashley Plamondon caused an offensive foul on Tiverton that resulted in her coming off the court with a bloody face.
“Ashley came off (the bench) and played really, really well,” Cunanan said. “She’s all bloodied from the effort she put in. It’s senior leadership like that we’re looking for, and she did a phenomenal job.”
Roberts ended up scoring a game-high 13 points and adding seven rebounds and five blocked shots. Senior guard Bella Mencarini contributed 10 points; freshman guard Casey Stores added nine points and five assists, and her classmate, Addie Johnson, had eight points.
“Emma’s a force,” Cunanan remarked. “She’s been here before in the playoffs, and she knows what this is all about. She knows how important every possession is, and she played a really, really solid game. She knows if she works really hard down low, she’s going to end up with some baskets.”
Defensively, “we tried to mix it up,” Cunanan added. “We knew that Tiverton likes to push the ball, and they have some really big kids and do some ball screen stuff, so if you don’t play it the right way, they are going to end up with some easy buckets.”
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