Monument Mountain Earns First Win of Winter
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When the final horn sounded, the Spartans also had their first win of the 2024-25 season.
Jaziah Forte scored 11 points, and eight different Monument Mountain players made a mark in the scorebook as the home team held off Mount Greylock for a 45-43 win.
The victory came on a night when Monument Mountain recognized John Lucey for six decades as a volunteer coach in the area.
Prior to the introductions, the Spartans lined up on the court with members of Lucey’s family and other community members to send a message to the longtime mentor, who was unable to attend but watched the game from home.
He then watched the Spartans go toe-to-toe with Mount Greylock, which earned a 58-44 win in the teams’ first meeting just two weeks ago.
“Honestly, one of the biggest differences was when we played at Mount Greylock, I think Tanley Drake took 14 free throws and made eight of them, and I don’t think she went to the line tonight,” Monument Mountain coach Joe Valerio said. “We let them shoot 22 free throws last time. Tonight was not nearly as many.
“And if you look at the layups we missed last time and the free throws we missed ourselves, that was the difference in the game.”
In the rematch, the Spartans were 12-for-20 at the foul line.
Monument Mountain led by as many as seven points early on when Forte converted an assist from Mallory Lucey, the granddaughter of the night's honoree, to give her team a 17-10 lead midway through the second quarter.
After a Mount Greylock timeout, the Mounties rallied, getting a 3-pointer from Tanely Drake (15 points) and three triples from Madison Drake (game-high 16) down the stretch to go into the locker room down by just one, 24-23.
Madison Drake had four 3s in the first 16 minutes of play.
Valerio said closing out on 3-point shooters was a point of emphasis at half-time.
“We game-planned for Tanley Drake, because she’s one of their leading scorers, right?” he said. “And Madison had four 3s in the first half. So we talked about, in our match-up 1-3-1, not a box-and-one but kind of similar. She’s hit four 3s, and we can’t let her stay hot.”
The Mounties made two 3-pointers in the second half – one from Mia Filiault and another from A.J. Pelkey.
“We were hoping to get some 3s and then get the ball inside, but we settled on a lot of 3s,” Mount Greylock coach John Jacobbe said. “When they go in, they’re great. When they’re not … You know, watch the Celtics. When they go, they’re great, and when they’re not going …
“But you’ve got to tip your hat to [Monument Mountain. They beat us by one possession, and we’ll go to work again tomorrow.”
It was a one-possession game throughout the second half.
Neither team led by more than four points, and the lead changed hands seven times.
Mount Greylock took the biggest lead of the half on Filiault’s 3-pointer midway through the fourth to give the Mounties a 40-36 advantage.
The Spartans clawed back at the foul line, getting one from Hannah Boino and three from Forte over a span of 1 minute, 29 seconds to tie it.
Mount Greylock, meanwhile, was in the middle of a stretch of nearly three minutes without a score.
Forte scored in transition with 1:55 on the clock to give the Spartans a 42-40 lead, and that is where it stayed as the teams traded turnovers until the Mounties’ Madison Drake was fouled attempting a 3-pointer with 59 seconds left.
She made one of her three tries at the line to make it a one-point game.
Half a minute later, Lucey drove into the lane and hit a pull-up jumper to make it 44-41.
At the other end, Mount Greylock tried a 3, and Remi Perreault got the defensive rebound and went to the foul line with 12.1 seconds remaining.
She missed a pair, and the Mounties got the rebound.
Following a timeout with 4.4 seconds left, Mount Greylock’s Madi Powell scored on an open look in the post to make it a one-point game, 44-43, with 1.6 seconds left.
The Spartans got to the line on a technical foul, and Lucey made one of two tries to put her team up two, and Monument Mountain executed the inbounds play to Perreault, who held the ball as the clock expired.
Ynes Bourdon scored eight points for the Spartans, who got five points, 13 rebounds and a blocked shot from Polly Geddes.
Valerio, in his first year at the helm at Monument Mountain, said that the win will pay dividends down the road for the program.
“As you saw, the last group we had in was four sophomores and a junior,” Valerio said. “I think as we continue to build this program back up to what it once was, the more our youth guides us. We have great seniors. They’re really, really great. They lead us the right way.
“But the more experience the younger guys get in situations like this, in a year or two, this will be a breeze for us. It’ll be a whole different ballgame.”
Monument Mountain (1-13) hosts Agawam on Thursday. Mount Greylock (5-8) is home against Pope Francis on Thursday.