Carpenter Closes Within 12 of Mount Everett's All-Time Scoring Mark

SHEFFIELD, Mass. -- Here is what you need to know about Mount Everett senior Gwendolyn Carpenter:

 

With a few minutes left and her team up double digits in its last home game until Jan. 24, Carpenter needed 12 points to become the school’s all-time leading scorer. But instead of jacking up 3s or driving to the hole and looking for contact, Carpenter sent two passes into the post: setting up Madison Ullrich for a bucket and getting Marion Devoti to the foul line for two.

 

Carpenter did not get another point. The Eagles got a sorely needed 60-47 win over Monument Mountain.

 

“[Mount Everett coach Scott Rote] said something to me about the record yesterday,” Carpenter said. “I didn’t know how close I was. He said, ‘If you have the opportunity, take it.’

 

“I was like, ‘I just want to win a game.’ This would be a really big win for us. So that was really what was in my mind. I wasn’t really even thinking about it. I wanted to get us the win.”

 

And she will get those 12 more points, but they almost certainly will come in one of the Eagles’ next four games -- all on the road starting with Wahconah on Thursday night.

 

Point No. 12 will nudge Carpenter past 2000 graduate Jen Bennett, who ended her career with 1,788 points.

 

Carpenter came into Tuesday’s game needing 37 -- an unlikely total for most players but not entirely out of her reach. And she had 15 at half-time.

 

But while she finished with 25, here’s something else to know about the perennial all-Berkshire County performer. She led Mount Everett in rebounds with 14, assists with six and steals with five.

 

Basically, she did everything she could to make sure the Eagles rebounded from a disappointing showing against Taconic on Friday night and moved to within one game of the .500 mark at 4-5 this winter.

 

“This was a big one,” she said. “We’ve had a tough start to the season. We’ve had some close games where we haven’t been able to get over that hump in the fourth quarter. But going into these next two weeks, we had a good feeling about it.

 

“This is just a really big win for us.”

 

The Eagles and Spartans went blow-for-blow through the opening stages, with Kylah Rivest giving Monument its last lead with a 3-pointer to make it 15-14 early in the second quarter.

 

Carpenter scored the next time down the court for Mount Everett, starting her team on what became a 15-2 run.

 

Madeline von Ruden scored in transition to push the Eagles’ lead to 18-15, but Meri Powell (seven points) answered with a bucket in the post on a pass from Maya Cooney to again make it a one-point game.

 

Then the Eagles scored the next 11, starting with a Carpenter steal and lay-in and ending with Ullrich (17 points, eight rebounds) putting back her own miss to give Mount Everett a 29-17 lead.

 

It was a 12-point margin at half-time, but Monument Mountain (3-3) got back to within five after a third quarter that saw Fiona Horan score seven of her team-high 17.

 

Powell hit a free throw with 6 minutes, 43 seconds left in the fourth to cut Mount Everett’s margin to six, 46-40, but the Eagles scored the next 10, including a pair of 3-pointers by Carpenter, who also had an assist to Ullrich during the run.

 

Destiny Brown knocked down a triple to stop the bleeding with about 3:30 left, but Monument was not able to get closer than 12 points the rest of the way.

 

Brown scored six of her 14 points in the first quarter but picked up her second foul early and had to sit out while the Eagles opened up a double-digit lead.

 

“Having Destiny sit out for the better part of the second quarter definitely hurt us,” Monument Mountain coach Steve Soule said. “She was having a good game up until that second foul.

 

“It messes up with the rotation. She would get a lot of minutes for us, and she was our spark plug in the beginning. She was leading the break, she made a couple of shots, but equally important, she was passing the ball really well. When we had to put her on the bench, it hurt. That’s for sure.”

 

Another key in the game was Mount Everett’s ability to rebound against Monument’s lengthy lineup. The Eagles earned a slight 37-35 edge on the glass, negating the Spartans’ height advantage.

 

“Madison [Ullrich] has just been a bear all year,” Rote said. “She’s been a rebounding machine. What she’s doing in the low post where you see Gwen thread the needle with passes … And Madeline von Ruden stepped her game up tonight, which we’ve been asking her to do, to run the floor, get out there in transition. And she made some great baseline drives for us.

 

“But without Madison controlling the boards for us, we’re not the same team.”

 

Rote hopes that Tuesday’s win can help propel the Eagles to be the kind of team that can get back to Curry Hicks Cage and the Western Mass Division 4 semi-finals in March and not the one that went 2-4 in December.

 

“This was a big win,” Rote said. “Like I said to the girls: That’s a signature win for us. To beat Monument. Monument’s not hitting on all cylinders right now, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still Monument: D3, a North County team, played with the lead and energy the whole game, it was huge.

 

“And going into the Wahconah game Thursday, this is what we needed, especially after having Taconic here last week.”