PLATTSBURGH — In times of despair, it’s hard to look at the bigger picture. Schroon Lake’s Jeff Cutting tried to remind his team after they fell 49-24 to Chateaugay.
“I just kind of reaffirmed for them, ‘Hey, if I told you Nov 4, when we started that you were all gonna be hurt and crying on March 15 because you were one game from the Final Four. Number one, you’re crazy. Coach. Number two, you would have taken in said, it’ll be worth it if we get to do that, you know, right?’ Cutting said. “40 years of girls basketball and you can really say you’re one of the three best teams that ever played basketball for Schroon Lake.”
Cutting’s right. It was the Wildcats first sectional championship since 2008, when they won back-to-back titles.
It normally would be a feather in the cap for someone to think the positives on. But in a hard fought game the girls went through, one can sympathize.
Schroon Lake could simply not get going offensively. The Bulldogs pressure them relentlessly from the opening whistle, and kept the Wildcats off balance.
“We practice and know there’s so much film out there, you can see it, and we knew it was coming, but it’s hard to replicate that in practice,” Cutting said. “We did the best we could trying to replicate it, but you’re really out there, and you feel it.
“They got the ball out of Carly (Smith)’s hands early. We tried to mix it up and move Olivia (Hartwell) in there a couple times, but they just took us totally out of our offense. I mean, they’re the very definition of relentless, and they deserve to be in the Final Four.”
Early in the second quarter, the Wildcats cut it to a 17-14 lead and looked to be settling in. But, Chateaugay went on runs and before you knew it was 33-14, and hope was draining from Schroon Lake.
“You have to play the perfect game and have a few things go your way,” Cutting said. “And I feel like we didn’t play a perfect game, and then they had a few things go their way with some of those banked in threes.
“And it just was hard to recover from those, I think mentally, that that shook us.”
Chateaugay had three threes in the first half as they were all banked in.
The second half proved stressful for the Wildcats as they didn’t make a field goal until 10 seconds to go in the game. Despite that, they never gave up and fought, keeping the Bulldogs from pulling further away.
“If you take those threes away, including the one at the end of the third quarter, that’s 12 points,” Cutting said. “Going into the fourth quarter, you could say, ‘Hey, we got a chance at this!’
“I think there was a point where I kept saying, ‘Hey, we still got a shot at this,’ where they were like, ‘Coach, are you watching the same game that we’re watching?’ You know, but I love them, you know, they’re just, I mean, they’re not the biggest, the fastest, the strongest or the most athletic team, but I feel like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts for my team. Like they play really well together as a group. They play hard all season and beat a lot of teams.”
Schroon Lake was led by Hartwell’s 13 points, while Chateaugay was paced by Madison McComb and Irelynn LaPlante, 16 points each.
The Wildcats finish the season 14-8, while winning the Section VII Class D Championship and the MVAC Division 1.
“Sometimes I still pinch myself and go, you know, we were the five seed last year and we were ousted by Bolton in the first round,” Cutting said. “I can still remember us all crying in that locker room. and I said, Look, girls, it’s going to take a lot of work to get back here and get past the first round.
“In my mind thinking, hey, if we could maybe get a home game when the season started, like if we could move to a three or a four seed and we could get a home game, maybe we could make a run at the end and at least make the finals or scare someone.”
They did more than that, and as Cutting said, after rallying from 17 down to beat Boquet Valley, they changed from a team that avoided losing, to a team that pushed to win.
It’ll take time, but they’ll sit back and remember the good times. They’ll take in the bigger picture.
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Chateaugay 49, Schroon Lake 24
Chateaugay (49)
Parmeter 1-0-2, McDonald 1-1-4, Ma. McComb 7-1-16, LaPlante 6-0-16, Leonard 1-0-3, Crawford 1-0-2, Patterson 1-0-2, My. McComb 2-0-4. TOTALS: 20-2-49
Schroon Lake (24)
Clark 1-0-3, Hartwell 4-4-13, Smith 2-2-7, Hart 0-1-1. TOTALS: 7-7-24.
Halftime- Chateaugay, 33-16
3 point goals- CCS (6) McDonald, Ma. McComb, LaPlant 3, Leonard. SLCS (3) Clark, Hartwell, Smith.