Pearl River Overwhelms the Bobcats in Winter Tourney
in Saturday’s title game of the 2014 Winter Classic.
By Andy Jacobs
Considering just how recently she took the reins as the head coach of the Byram Hills girls’ basketball team, Sarah Kinsley is well aware there are sure to be some bumps in the road as she and her Bobcats travel on an uncharted path.
They encountered the first of those bumps on Saturday evening when the Pirates of Pearl River closed the first quarter on a 19-2 run en route to a lopsided 60-31 victory in the championship game of the Byram Hills 2014 Winter Classic. Kari Portington and Emma Daly scored 19 points apiece as the visitors from Rockland made themselves right at home in the Bobcats’ annual tournament.
“They’re a very, very good team,” said Kinsley afterwards about the Pirates. “But I don’t think they’re 30 points better than us. We did it to ourselves.”
The Bobcat trouble began soon after senior guard Lucy Bancone connected on a shot from beyond the arc that gave Byram its only lead of the evening, 3-2. Pearl River answered by scoring the game’s next 13 points. The Pirates’ run was stopped by a Taylor Verboys basket, but the quarter ended with the Pirates scoring six more unanswered points to build a 16-point lead.
A minute and a half into the second quarter, Bancone fed Kiera Ahern for a layup. Unfortunately for the Bobcats, the Pirates then went on a 10-2 burst, getting six of the points from Daly and stretching their cushion to 31-9. But Pearl River went scoreless over the final three minutes of the half as the Bobcats tried to battle their way back.
A conventional three-point play by Bancone was soon followed by a 17-foot jumper from Dana Dicristofaro. Ashley Polera made a steal and drove the length of the court for a layup that brought the Bobcats to within 31-16 at halftime. When the second half began, the Bobcats, who were told by Kinsley at intermission that they “need to come play Byram basketball,” continued to claw their way into the contest.
The third quarter started with a fast-break layup by Verboys, who led the Bobcats with 10 points. Eighth-grader Maggie Walsh followed with a jump shot from just left of the foul line, narrowing the Byram deficit to 11 points. Pearl River, scoreless for nearly eight minutes, finally got a short jumper from Portington with 3:09 left in the third quarter.
Polera answered by driving through the lane and hitting on a scoop shot in traffic. The junior guard then fed Ahern for another Bobcat basket that trimmed the Pearl River advantage to single digits, 33-24.
“Yeah, those seven minutes, the girls started playing defense,” said Kinsley. “We switched from man-to-man to a 1-3-1. The girls were boxing out, they were paying attention to their cuts and their screens. Before that, we were not. We were kind of all over the place and we got ourselves in a hole and it was hard to come back from.”
Regrettably for Kinsley and the Bobcats, they never got any closer the rest of the way. The 15-2 Byram run over the second and third quarters wound up being much too little and too late to change the outcome. The Pirates closed the third quarter with baskets by Portington and Annie McBride and then piled up 23 points in the final period.
Over the game’s final three and a half minutes, Pearl River scored 15 unanswered points before Dicristofaro finally put an end to the streak by making a free throw. Moments later, Daly and Portington, along with the Bobcats’ Bancone, were named to the all-tournament team and the Pirates received the championship trophy as the dejected Bobcats watched from their bench.
“We had a lot of turnovers, and that’s been our problem the last two games,” said Kinsley, whose team is now 2-1 this season. “We had a great game against Nyack and then the last two games we’ve been playing poorly, even though we won yesterday (52-29 over Yonkers in the opening round). We need to stay focused, run through our offenses and play our game. We try to play their game and that’s not gonna work for us.”
Three games into her career as a head coach, Kinsley is hoping her players have turned the page on the preseason drama and can start focusing on the challenges ahead.
“In the beginning, when I first became head coach, it was a little chaotic,” she admitted. “But we’ve gotten into a good rhythm, a good pattern with the girls. They understand what the expectations are. But it will take time for them to adjust to my style of play as opposed to their old coach’s.”
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