Millionaires Shake Off Rust in Win over Spartans
LENOX, Mass. – Grace Julieano Thursday scored nine of her 15 points in the third quarter to help the Lenox pull away in a 60-35 win over Monument Mountain.
Julieano hit a pair of 3-pointers in a 20-5 quarter for the Millionaires, who turned a 10-point lead into a 49-24 cushion going to the fourth.
Lenox coach Nicole Patella was happy to see Julieano find some success on the offensive end.
“She’s been struggling a little bit,” Patella said. “I think she sometimes takes a little bit too quick of a shot, so we’ve been talking to her about taking her time a little bit. It was good to see some of those fall for her.”
A lot of shots were falling for the Millionaires (4-0) after the first quarter as they overcame a slow start to post their best offensive night of winter.
Lenox, which had not played since Dec. 20, needed to knock off a little rust in the early going.
The Spartans, meanwhile, got 3-pointers from four different players to take a 14-13 lead eight minutes in.
“We’ve been talking about seeing that first challenge, and Monument came ready to play,” Patella said. “We had to wake up a little bit. It took us about a quarter and a half, but we finally opened it up a little bit.”
Mallory Lucey, Remi Perreault and Brooke Decker each hit a 3 early to give Monument Mountain a 9-3 lead. And Jaziyah Forte (team-high eight points) knocked down a triple just before the buzzer to give her team a one-point lead going to the second.
Lenox opened the second quarter with a 14-0 run to take the lead for good.
Claire O’Brien and Chloe Parsenios each connected from behind the arc to get the run started. Katie Shove ended it with a jumper from the left wing to give Lenox a 27-14 lead with about three minutes left in the half.
One constant for the Millionaires in the first half was its pressure defense, which helped produce 19 Monument Mountain turnovers in the first 16 minutes of the game.
“I think we caused a lot of turnovers,” Patella said. “Those turnovers didn’t turn into many points, but we’ll work on that as well – capitalizing on getting a turnover, especially a big turnover at a crucial time. It’s the first time we’ve really pressed a team this year. Getting our energy back in our legs, that was part of the reason.”
Evelyn Julieano had a game-high four steals to go with eight points and seven rebounds.
After Monument Mountain made a third-quarter push to get the deficit down to 19 at 51-32, Evelyn Julieano hit a 3-pointer to cap a 7-0 Lenox spurt that made it 58-32 with 3 minutes, 6 seconds to play.
The Spartans, who jumped on top early with their 3-pointers, made just two triples and scored just 21 points over the last three quarters.
“We talked about at half-time that a 3 is not necessarily the highest percentage shot,” Monument Mountain coach Joe Valerio said. “We made three or four in the first [quarter], but we talked about, ‘Hey, let’s try to get inside. Let’s get a couple more layups in the second half.
“And in the third quarter, I don’t know if we shot a 3. I think we took that as, ‘Hey, we’re shooting too many 3s, let’s just stop.’ … I think there’s a balance between both of them. And on a night when we’re shooting well, we’ve got to shoot more. We just went away from what was working for us.”
Polly Geddes had a game-high eight rebounds for Monument Mountain (0-5), which goes to Agawam on Friday.
Lenox is at Greenfield on Monday.