Drury Girls Win as Monument Mountain Squad Overcomes Difficult Day

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- It was all smiles at home for the Drury girls on Valentine’s Day with Alyssa Russell scoring 18 points and leading the Blue Devils to a 40-16 victory over Monument Mountain on Tuesday night.

 

Russell caught fire in the second period finding three from downtown.

 

“I’m feeling really good,” The Drury senior said. "This is definitely the day to come out and play. It was a really important game for us, for Western Mass and States, I just think we really showed up as a team."

 

Russell finsished with four 3s for the night. Brooke Bishop added six to the scoreboard while Morgan Sarkis hit a three and finished with five. All the Blue Devils showed tenacious defense throughout the game to help secure the win.

 

After the game Drury head coach Ian Downey revealed the key to the successful night.

 

"Obviously the thing I try and stress the whole entire season is everything starts with our defense," Downey said. "And for us, there's been times this year we have struggled to score, and any time your team has struggles to score you have to play defense to keep yourself in games, and we always shoot for our goals. .. .Once we held them to nine points at halftime, that then turned to, 'Let's hold them under 20, and we were able to do that."

 

As for Monument Mountain (8-10), Kayleigh Davis and Natalie Lewis, each lead the Spartans with four points, and Megan Dupont sunk a 3-pointer. This was the second meeting of these teams with Monument Mountain winning their first encounter. 

 

Monument Mountain coach John Perreault did not make any excuses for his squad but did reveal that the Spartans were facing challenges off the court on Tuesday.

 

"We had a tough loss in Lenox last night. Not an excuse for us. We really didn't show up and play well tonight," Perreault said.

 

"There was a lockdown in school, which was real today, that affected I think a lot of the girls on top of that being back-to-back, I mean they were locked in a room for four hours plus today, didn't know if they were going to allow activities tonight so we're on the fence are we coming not coming? I don't think our heads were in it. Do you know what? That certainly wasn't the best game I coached, couldn't light a fire under them, didn't take care of the ball. Historically we play a lot better than we did tonight so we're just gonna get back to work tomorrow work hard..." 

 

Coach Perreault then paused a second, "You know what? I don't want to take anything away from Drury. They played some great hard, man-to-man defense tonight they wanted it more than we did, and hats off to them."

 

The game was tied 9-9 until 6:38 in the second period when the Drury girls went on a 25-point run while displaying incredible defense, keeping the Spartans in the single digits before halftime. 

 

“Again everything starts off our defense, Downey said. "We get easier points off our defense, when we play good 'D' it gives us energy on the offensive end. That’s the thing I’m most happy with. It’s not about how much we won. It’s not about how many points are scored. When I look up and only see 16 points, that’s what I love to see."

 

Drury (7-10) will host Mount Everett on Thursday. Monument Mountain waits for its assignment in next week's PVIAC post-season.

 

Both teams are still looking to secure spots in the State Tournament.

 

Photos from this game here.