Pittsfield Girls Fall to East Longmeadow

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- Nicole Coolidge scored 22 points, and the East Longmeadow girls basketball team used a 9-0 fourth-quarter run to open an eight-point lead en route to a 60-50 win over Pittsfield on Tuesday in the Western Massachusetts Division 2 semi-finals.

 

Emery Sime hit three 3-pointers and scored 14 points to go with nine rebounds to lead Pittsfield.

 

Freshman Jamie Duquette had a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds, and senior Jordyn Lummus scored 11 points and pulled down 11 boards and passed out 10 assists in her last game for the Generals.

 

Eighth-seeded Pittsfield (11-11), which lost by 15 points to East Longmeadow in early January, played even with the Spartans most of the night on Tuesday at Western New England University.

 

Duquette's free throw 28 seconds into the fourth quarter gave Pittsfield its last lead of the night at 42-41.

 

But Pittsfield then went cold for the next four minutes, allowing No. 4 East Longmeadow (15-7) to take control.

 

Coolidge's putback with about four minutes left in regulation made it 50-42, and the Spartans never looked back.

 

"A couple of times we shot ourselves in the foot, and then we came back and made a basket in that fourth quarter," Pittsfield coach Joe Racicot said. "We didn't have that comeback. We didn't have that shot we needed.

 

"Everybody's in good shape, but there could have been just a little fatigue. We played everybody, pretty much, because of foul trouble. ... Unfortunately, we didn't make those shots that we needed to make up for turnovers."

 

Alexi Sondrini (eight points) broke the Spartans' run with a 3-pointer assisted by Lummus, but East Longmeadow scored the next five points at the foul line to take a 10-point lead with 1:38 left on the clock.

 

The Spartans took a 15-8 lead late in the first quarter, but the Generals battled back in the second with their outside shooting.

 

Sime hit two 3-pointers, and Jamie Duquette knocked down a deep 2 from the left wing in a 14-7 Pittsfield run.

 

Sime's second triple of the game tied it, 22-22, with 2 minutes, 42 seconds left in the half.

 

After the two teams traded empty possessions, Alyssa Cafaro converted a free throw for East Longmeadow to break the tie.

 

The next time down the floor for the Spartans, Nina Gamelli converted an offensive rebound to make it a three-point lead.

 

Jordyn Lummus cut into that margin by converting both ends of a one-and-one with four seconds left in the half, sending Pittsfield to the locker room down by just one, 25-24.

 

Pittsfield led by as many as seven in the third quarter when Sondrini drove the lane to make it 36-29 early in the second half. But East Longmeadow closed the third on a 5-0 run to go to the fourth tied, 41-41.

 

East Longmeadow moves on to Saturday's sectional final at Curry Hicks Cage in Amherst against third-seeded Taconic (20-2), a 61-44 winner over Amherst on Tuesday night.

 

Pittsfield can look ahead to a bright future, albeit without senior captain Lummus or classmates Emma King, Maleah Speers-Brown and Mary Hines.

 

"Jordyn [Lummus] brought a lot of what us old-timers call 'true grit,' " Racicot said. "True grit and heart. She did that every day, whether it was at practice or in a game. And she was a great leader.

 

"As far as the whole group of seniors, they just kept it class. It was class the whole way through. Even the seniors who didn't play much ... they never whined or pouted. They just contributed as much as they could during practice."