A decisive second quarter gave the Greenfield girls basketball team a 56-21 win over Franklin Tech on Friday night.
After a sloppy first quarter, the Green Wave (4-4, 3-1) outscored the Eagles 19-4 in the second frame to pull away at Nichols Gymnasium in Franklin South competition. The win came at a nice time for Greenfield as the Green Wave had lost two straight games.
Once Greenfield started to score, they got into their press and created more offense that way. Things unraveled for the Eagles after Greenfield started to score consistently.
“It always starts with our defense,” Greenfield coach Ben Johnson said. “To end that losing streak and get that confidence of seeing the ball go in the hoop is always a good thing.”
Tayler Bergeron scored 15 points for Greenfield. The Green Wave got tons of secondary scoring. Gloria McDonald and Amy Mihailicenco each had nine points.
“Everyone around the league everyone knows Tayler is going to score some points,” Johnson said. “It’s getting the other girls confident and aggressive enough to when their open let it fly and hit those shots.”
After a poor shooting performance against Hopkins Academy, the Green Wave saw an improvement even in a loss to Hampshire Regional.
“It started at practice,” McDonald said. “We did a lot of form shooting. Just worked on quick shots. Contested shots. We did a bunch of drills working on pressure on us. That really helped us especially against Hampshire. It was a little bumpy start today, lots of turnovers. But we really picked it up in the second half.”
Mihailicenco made a shot toward the end of the first quarter that seemed to spark Greenfield. At the end of a scattered and unsettled possession, Mihailicenco launched a 3-pointer at the end of the shot clock. The shot went in and she was fouled on the play. The free throw missed but it gave Greenfield a little momentum.
Using the shooting of Brayleigh Burgh, Franklin Tech (3-6, 1-4) built a 12-7 lead after the first quarter. The Eagles would only score nine points the rest of the way. Greenfield outscored Franklin Tech 30-5 in the second half.
“We came in with a solid gameplan,” Franklin Tech Joe Gamache said. “We were making the shots out of transition and steals and rebounds. They did a nice job of making adjustments. Then the shots stop falling and we stopped working for rebounds.”
Burgh scored 10 points for the Eagles. Sarah Beckwith added six points and six rebounds. Annie Cobileanschi chipped in with eight points for the Wave. Freshman Sofia Ruggeri drilled a 3-pointer in the late stages of the fourth quarter for Greenfield.
Abigail Dobias had three steals for the Eagles.
Pioneer 54, Mahar 44 — The Panthers handed the Senators their first Franklin South league loss of the season at Messer Gymnasium.
Pioneer (4-3, 2-2 Franklin South) controlled the game from the start and outscored the Senators (5-2, 3-1 Franklin South) in three of the four quarters. Pioneer held a 30-24 lead at halftime.
Maggie Tsipenyuk led Pioneer with a career-high 18 points with six rebounds. Jaelyn Boliski scored 13 points with four 3-pointers . Kyler McClelland added nine points for Pioneer. Kiara Gruszkowski controlled the glass with nine rebounds and added seven points for the Panthers.
Hayden Comeau scored 23 points for Mahar. Taylor Paluk added 13 points.
Frontier 51, Pope Francis 38 — The Redhawks rolled to their seventh straight win in Springfield. Skyler Steele got things cooking in the first quarter with four 3-pointers on her way to a game-high 17 points in the Suburban league match up.
Whitney Campbell had a double-double, finishing with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Newly minted 1,000-point scorer Addie Harrington did a little bit of everything with 12 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Harper Modestow played set up, dishing out five assists to go with six points for Frontier (7-1, 5-0 Suburban)
Smith Voc 34, Athol 27 — The Bears lost to the Vikings in Northampton in a Tri-County North match up.
Madeline Desrosier scored eight points for Athol. (2-7, 2-3 Tri County North).
Baystate Academy 47, Turners Falls 22 — Ivy Lopez scored 10 points for the Thunder in the home loss in Tri-County North play.
Jojo Hayman added six points for the Thunder (0-7, 0-3 Tri-County North).
Boys basketball
Smith Vocational 81, Mohawk 36 — The Vikings were too much for the Warriors in Buckland. Mohawk (0-8, 0-5 Tri-County North) got 13 points from Malcolm Briggs and seven points from Brayden Marcoux.
