Stamford/Jefferson girls take Section IV Class D title
· Yahoo Sports
DELHI — McKenna Hoyt scored a game-high 25 points and Tierney Turner scored 24 points as top seeded Stamford/Jefferson won a Section IV Class D girls basketball title with a 59-45 win over No. 2 seeded Cherry Valley-Springfield in the championship game Saturday, March 7, at SUNY Delhi’s Clark Field House.
It is the first section title in the sport for Jefferson and the first for Stamford since 2000.
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“They’re a great team, but honestly, we’ve been wanting this since we were kids,” Hoyt said. “At the end of the day, I think we wanted this more.”
S/J used a full-court press to start the game and it worked to rattle the Patriots early. S/J led 7-1, and CV-S didn’t make a field goal until midway through the first quarter when Allie Ackerman’s three pointer from the right wing made it 7-4.
S/J ran the lead to 13-6, but the Patriots scored the final four points of the quarter, ending with a buzzer beater by Ackerman to make it 13-10.
S/J stopped pressing in the second quarter and CV-S tied the game a couple of times and took a brief lead, 19-17, on Mackenzie McGovern’s steal and layup with 5:02 left in the half.
However, S/J responded as they have all season, with another run. Hoyt went strong to the basket to tie the game at 19, and S/J closed the quarter on an 8-4 run for a 27-23 halftime lead.
“Every practice that we have ever done, every off-season practice, all the work shows here,” Hoyt said. “You can see all the effort that we all put in together to work as a team. We all love each other. I think because our relationships are all so good and we are all so close that, that happens when we are challenged.”
With 5:01 left in the third quarter, Bailey Thayer’s putback brought CV-S within three points, 30-27, but S/J outscored the Patriots 15-8 to end the quarter with a 45-35 lead.
Yet, Ackerman had another buzzer beating three pointer from the right wing to give her team momentum. CV-S opened the fourth on a 7-2 run with McGovern’s three from the left corner making it 47-42.
“I think the story of the game was in the fourth quarter,” S/J Coach George Nebesnik said. “We had a 10-point lead, they cut it to five, and then we called time out and scored, I think, the next six points.”
Thayer scored 17 points, McGovern scored 15 points and Ackerman scored eight points for Cherry Valley-Springfield (15-5), the Tri-Valley League champions.
“That was a really good team there,” Nebesnik said. “We went through three defenses trying to stop them. We thought if we threw the press at them, we might be able to jump on them and get them out of sorts, but they kept their composure and came right back.
“You are going to see them here again next year, and the next couple of years,” he said.
Stamford/Jefferson (21-2) will play a Section III team, to be determined this week, in the regional game at 10 a.m., Sunday, March 15, at Visions Veterans Arena in Binghamton.