Greylock's Barrett Scores 1,000th in Win Over Lenox
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LENOX, Mass. — When Mount Greylock junior Lucy Barrett Tuesday night scored her thousandth career point, the fans started cheering like mad.
Her coach and father jumped up to signal a timeout.
Her opponents from Lenox High moved to offer their congratulations.
And Barrett herself? She moved toward the baseline to defend the inbound pass.
As important as the personal milestone was for Barrett, the eventual 59-42 win was pretty darn sweet, too.
"I knew going into the season, I was at 700-and-something," said Barrett, who played her first varsity game and scored her first points as an eighth-grader — at Lenox, no less. "But I didn't worry about it all year, whether I was going to make it. I just had goals of making the Western Mass [tournament] and hopefully getting a first-round home game.
"Whatever I got at the end of the night, that was just a bonus."
On Tuesday night, she ended up with 26 points — 20 in a first half that left her two shy of the milestone — and Mount Greylock ended up with its ninth win of the season, meaning it can clinch a berth in the Western Massachusetts Division 3 tournament on Friday with a win at Mount Everett.
"Definitely, going into Mount Everett, it's nice that we have one more win to make the tournament, a lot sooner than we had a chance my eighth-, ninth- or 10th-grade years," Barrett said. "It feels good to have such great success this year."
Paul Barrett, the Mounties' coach, knows that his daughter is a big reason for that success, but she is by no means the only reason.
That is why Mount Greylock (9-4) had the lead Tuesday before Lucy hit her first field goal with two minutes left in the first quarter.
"I know she was pressing early, but one thing this year she has been is consistent,” Paul Barrett said. “Even if she gets 15, it's not a big deal. She just has to get out and play.
"And that's one thing about our team: Even though she's the leading scorer, everyone does a lot of good things."
Jenna Benzinger grabbed 17 rebounds and blocked seven shots on Tuesday. Sarah Stripp finished with four assists — three in the first half.
That first half featured a whole lot of the offense that Lucy Barrett has displayed over the last three-plus years in a Mounties uniform. After she scored in transition to make it 7-2, she accounted for 18 points over the next 10 minutes.
The result was a 32-13 Mount Greylock lead and a stat line that turned Paul Barrett's head.
"The only time we talked about [the thousandth point] at all was, walking off [at half-time] I saw the sign that said '998,' " he said. "I said, 'Are you kidding me? She had 20 in the first half?
"Then it was, 'OK, let's get her the two points and get that done so we can finish the game.' Well, we got that done, but then we struggled to finish the game."
After Lucy Barrett scored her 1,000th and accepted the congratulations of teammates, opponents and family members, the game resumed and the Millionaires took control.
Lenox whittled a 19-point deficit down to just nine when Liz Mitts (team-high 22 points) set up Alice Najimy for a bucket to make it 51-42 with 4 minutes, 30 seconds on the clock. But Lenox did not score the rest of the way, while the Mounties' defense, which struggled earlier in the half to prevent second-chance points, started racking up defensive rebounds.
"I'd have to say probably there was a letdown [after the celebration for Lucy]," Paul Barrett said. "But we are very capable of building a lead and letting down. That's what we're trying to impress upon them: Good teams just play their game and continue to play their game. That's a little bit of the youngness and a little bit of the inexperience, and it reared its ugly head.
"They did, I guess, sort of settle down."
Stripp snapped a long scoring drought with a long two-point field goal to make it 53-42, and Arianna Walden scored four of her nine points down the stretch to keep the game out of reach.
In scoring her 1,000th point, Barrett joins a short list of Mounties to reach the milestone, and as a junior, she has plenty of time to add to the achievement. According to Mount Greylock Athletic Director Lindsey von Holtz, just Karen Rice in the 1990s and Mark Bubriski in 1969 have scored 1,000 at Mount Greylock.
Barrett's big first half Tuesday probably was a relief to friends and family who wanted to see her accomplishment but may not have been looking forward to the trip to Sheffield on Friday.
"It definitely means a lot seeing all these people come out," she said. "It put a little pressure on, but I wasn't worried about whether I got it tonight or not. I just wanted to get the win."