By Allison Goldsmith
I&M Sports Editor
The junior varsity girls basketball team has won two out of its last three games with victories over Provincetown and Upper Cape Tech before falling at Martha’s Vineyard Friday.
The Whalers, who improved to 6-2 on the season, defeated Provincetown 39-19 two weekends ago, beat Upper Cape Tech handily 46-4 last Wednesday and lost at the Vineyard 26-20.
Nantucket was scheduled to play a rematch with the Vineyard yesterday, too late for this edition of Sports. Next up for the Whalers, the JV squad will travel to South Shore Voke on Saturday for a rematch of an intense 34-33 victory last month.
“They have been consistent in trying to improve a little bit each game. I think our strong point this year has been our rebounding,” head coach Missy Dee said.
Against the Vineyard on Friday, the Whalers started off strong but struggled against their zone defense.
“I thought the Vineyard was going to play us straight up man-to-man but they sat back in a 1-3-1 zone and we were having trouble on turnovers,” Dee said. “The effort was there. It was just a matter of finishing. We had too many turnovers off the passes to the wing. We needed to get the ball inside more and we weren’t able to.”
Christina Anderson led the Whalers with six points, while Bianca Brown and Ashley Clinger scored four each and were strong on the boards for Nantucket. Lia Newman also scored four points and handled the Vineyard pressure well at point guard.
Against Upper Cape Tech last Wednesday, the Whalers dominated from the opening tip.
“That was a game where obviously we had the advantage with our quickness and our rebounding. We pressed early and got a substantial lead,” Dee said.
Upper Cape could not get the ball inside against the Whalers, and struggled with the outside shot. The Whalers went up 20-0 before the Rams scored their only field goal of the game with 5:11 remaining in the first half.
Grace Ann Tornovish scored a game-high 10 points, while Newman contributed eight. Morgan Dugan and Clinger each added six, while Anderson and Taylor Murphy scored four points each.
At Provincetown on Jan. 27, both teams started off slowly. With five points in the first half, Newman provided nearly all of the offense for the Whalers as they led 9-5 at the break. In the second half, the offense clicked into gear as the junior varsity squad rebounded to post 30 points on the Fishermen.
“They came out and played pretty tough. Our rebounding was a lot better. We had a lot of offensive boards and put-backs which made the difference in the second half,” Dee said.
Newman totaled nine points to lead the Whalers in the win. Brown had a solid second half with eight points. Anderson and Clinger each scored six and Tornovish had four.
Reach Allison Goldsmith at sports@inkym.com |
