LENOX, Mass. – If Tuesday’s Lee-Lenox girls basketball game had ended after 24 minutes, the outcome would not have changed, but the victorious Millionaires might have felt a little better about the night.
The Wildcats finished on a 10-0 run that spanned the third and fourth quarters, but Lenox had a big enough cushion to walk off with a 44-29 win in their season opener.
Chloe Parsenios and Kelsey Kirchner led Lenox with 14 and 10 points, respectively, and the Millionaires’ defense, which was a cornerstone of last year’s Western Mass Class C final run, held Lee to just nine points in the first half.
Lenox’s offense, on the other hand, went ice cold late, putting up a goose egg in the fourth quarter.
“What I just said to them was, ‘Good start, but, you know … ‘ “ Lenox coach Nicole Patella said. “I don’t want to say we ‘hung on,’ but there’s obviously things we gotta work on.
“They came out hot, they came out strong. They made their lay-ups. I think fatigue might have been a factor in the fourth quarter. When we’re shooting a lot of 3s or taking a lot of fastbreak layups, sometimes your legs aren’t there and you’re not going to do well. So we’ve got to work on that.”
Lenox had it going on in the first 16 minutes, building a 29-9 lead to take to the locker room.
Kirchner, who had seven rebounds to go with her 10 points, scored seven in the first quarter, hitting a pair of free throws late to cap a 9-0 run that made it 16-4.
It was a nine-point margin after one because Kenzie Garrity drilled a late 3 for Lee, but Lenox opened the second quarter with an 11-0 spurt to take a 20-point lead with 2 minutes, 12 seconds left in the half when Jocelyn Fairfield (six points, seven rebounds) drove the lane for a bucket.
A transition basket from Parsenios closed the first half with Lenox up by 20.
Lee went into the break knowing it could have been closer but for nine missed free throws. The Wildcats (1-1) ended up going 2-for-19 at the charity stripe.
“We’ve got to start making some free throws,” Lee coach Puleri said. “You make six of those [in the first half], and the energy level stays up. [Lenox] is a good team, on the road, you can’t have a 2-for-19 night at the line and expect to win.”
Lee got a couple of makes at the line from Mia Puleri (10 points, five rebounds) in the opening stages of the third quarter, when the teams were trading points.
But Lenox pulled away with a 7-0 spurt – all from junior Grace Julieano. First, she put back an offensive rebound, got fouled and completed the conventional three-point play. Next, she connected from behind the line in transition. Finally, she got fouled again and sank one of two at the line to make it 44-16.
Lee’s Gianna Carlino hit a 3-pointer to close the third quarter, and the Wildcats rode that momentum into the fourth, getting a Puleri drive on the right wing and another Carlino triple to close within 18 points with 4:50 left to play.
Patella called timeout to stop the run and called two more timeouts in the last three minutes to try to get her offense back on track, but Lee kept Lenox off the scoreboard the rest of the way. The Wildcats just could not make much of a dent in the deficit at the other end.
“We talked about it at half-time,” Puleri said of Lee’s turnaround. “There was a little bit of bad body language going into the locker room. And I said … ‘It’s OK to lose, but not to get defeated like that. If you’re going to lose, you go out and compete and you get beat, OK. You can live with it.
“And they did a much better job in the second half.”
Lee will look to get back in the win column on Monday when it hosts Drury.
Lenox has a quick turnaround, playing its first road game at Pioneer Valley on Wednesday.
The Millionaires visit Lee on Jan. 27.
