Taconic Girls Enjoy Matinee With Cathedral

PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- Brianna Rogers scored 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds in the first half alone as the Taconic girls basketball team jumped out to a big early lead and never looked back on Saturday.

 

Rogers went on to score a team-high 13 and lead her team to a 64-28 win that snapped a three-game losing streak.

 

She would have scored more, except that Taconic coach Matt Mickle took advantage of the opportunity to give some well deserved minutes to his bench players in the second half.

 

"With the week we've had -- between Wahconah, Monument and Hoosac in three days -- it was nice to have a game like this," Mickle said. "Everybody played. We had a couple of kids get the first points of their varsity career tonight.

 

"And I thought we played solid. It was good to have this day."

 

Cortnee Clemons scored all nine of her points in the first quarter as Taconic (6-10) jumped out to a 19-2 lead.

 

It was 25-3 early in the second quarter before Cathedral started to find its legs and made an 11-2 run to get within 13.

 

But Taconic finished the half with six straight -- the last four on putbacks by Rogers -- to go to half-time ahead by 19.

 

Shalee Conyers came up big in the third quarter with nine of her 11 points to help push the lead to 52-23.

 

In the fourth, most of Taconic's starters got to sit back -- and occasionally jump for joy -- and watch their teammates grab the spotlight.

 

Taconic jumps back into the Berkshire County fray on Monday at Monument Mountain before finishing with Drury, Pittsfield and Chicopee.

 

Mickle's team must win out to get to 10 wins and a berth in the Western Massachusetts tournament, and it plans on battling to the end.

 

"We're still alive, and we're still talking about it," Mickle said. "Until we're not alive, we'll still talk about being in it. It's obviously not an easy task.

 

"It's going to take a lot of work here, but until we're out of of it, we're going to talk about being in it."