HOLDEN – Save for 41 seconds late in the second quarter, the Central Catholic High girls basketball team trailed every step of the way throughout Thursday’s Division 1 state quarterfinal game against the returning state finalist Wachusett Regional.
The Raiders trailed 6-2 early on, 21-13 with 4:16 left in the second quarter, 35-29 with 4:56 left in the third, 49-40 with 5:27 left and 53-46 with 1:16 to go.
Each time they came back to make it one possession. That included the final five seconds of the game. Lilly Phillips drained a three-pointer and Addison Beers forced a turnover off the inbound pass. That gave Central the ball with 0.9 seconds left and down by three, but a last second heroic shot fell short.
The buzzer sounded and the No. 1 seed Mountaineers came away with a 54-51 victory over No. 8 Central Catholic.
“The (Wachusett) coach just told me that nobody has played them tougher. We played them twice and we ran them to the last second both times,” said Central Catholic head coach Casey Grange, noting the 46-44 defeat back on Feb. 17 in the Comcast Tournament.
“I’m just extremely proud of my crew coming in here in front of a hostile crowd and going up against the number one seed. It was the number one seed versus the number eight seed. No newspaper, no podcast, no nothing took a chance on us, but we all believed that we could pull it off. We were right there (to do it),” added Grange.
Wachusett (22-1) changed its defensive strategy from the first meeting, going to a 2-3 zone and that lead to 16 total turnovers and a handful of easy buckets off steals.
“We want to score in the paint, because we’re not terrific outside shooters if you look at our percentages,” said Grange. “We forced it a little bit too much. Lilly (Phillips) hit some (outside) shots which kept their defense honest a bit, but it’s tough beating a zone (defense) with two big kids in the middle.”
Central trailed by six with 4:06 left in the third until Aniela Kwo converted two baskets within 25 seconds — first grabbing a loose ball and throwing up a shot in traffic, before converting a lay-up off a defensive rebound and outlet pass from Beers. A Kerri Finneran basket with ten seconds left cut the deficit to a point.
Wachusett opened the fourth quarter on an 9-1 run, but Central responded with a basket from Kwo and later a three-pointer by Phillips. Wachusett’s Kyla Yurkus made a nice post-up move to extend the lead to seven with 1:16 left and that’s when Central’s incredible comeback started but just short.
“(Our resilience) is the story of our season,” said Grange, who also gave a lot of credit to her entire staff for their preparation into the team’s game plan. “We don’t stop fighting and that’s what I’m most proud of. Our culture is super important here and I think those tears are yes that we lost, but more so they are going to miss being around each other, which at the end of the day is what it’s all about.”
Both Kwo (9 rebounds) and Phillips led the way with 16 points each. Finneran added nine points and six rebounds, Caroline Vient had seven points, while Beers finished with three points, seven rebounds and three steals.
“We knew what we were facing since we just played them in the Comcast tournament, so we knew what we needed to do,” said Beers. “They are the number one seed for a reason, which was shown tonight but our fight was definitely there, and I’d do anything for any of these girls any day of the week.”
Wachusett Regional 54, Central Catholic 51Central Catholic: Aniela Kwo 7-2-16, Lilly Phillips 5-2-16, Caroline Vient 3-0-7, Kerri Finneran 3-3-9, Addison Beers 1-1-3. Totals: 19-8-51.
Wachusett: Sophie Gibbons 4-0-8, Jaelynn Scott 8-4-20, Kyla Yurkus 3-0-6, Ella Kielinen 5-0-11, Teegan Lanpher 1-3-5, Caroline Mahoney 2-0-4. Totals: 23-7-54.
Halftime: Wachusett 29-25; 3-pointers: CC, Phillips 3, Vient 1; W, Kielinen; Records: Central Catholic 15-8; Wachusett 22-1.