South Hadley Comes Back on Drury in Western Mass Quarter-Finals

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. -- Mia Kelly scored 27 points, including 15 in the second half to lead the top-seeded South Hadley girls basketball team to a 65-50, come from behind win over Drury in the Western Massachusetts Division 3 quarter-finals on Friday night.

 

Drury led the Tigers (16-5) 37-30 at half-time, but South Hadley tied the game at the end of the third quarter and ran away with it in the fourth.

 

"Obviously, I'm proud of how my girls played," Drury coach Ian Downey said. "I think we showed South Hadley that we weren’t a typical No. 8 seed. In the first half we played like the team that was a Western Mass contender. Sharing the ball, knocking down shots and playing tough defense."

 

Drury's Brooke DiGennaro scored 11 of her team-high 20 points in the first quarter.

 

"Unfortunately, we went dead cold in the second half," Downey said. "We just never could get into a rhythm and it effected us on the offensive end. To their credit they started to make some tough shots which made us lose our composure a little bit as we started pressing and shooting shots outside of our offensive sets."

 

Haley Shook backed up DiGennaro with six points. Alison Felix, Tess Zoito and Anna Dix each had five.

 

South Hadley moves on to Wednesday's Western Mass semi-finals against No. 4 Greenfield (18-3), a 60-33 winner over Hampshire on Friday.

 

Drury (13-9) finished the season with five wins in its last seven games, including a first-round home win in the sectional tournament.

 

"To my seniors, it’s never easy to lose your last game," Downey said. "But as I said to them after the game they are leaving the program in a better place and they should be proud of that. They have set a level of standards that the returners can build on for years to come."