Pittsfield Edges South Hadley for Class B Title
HOLYOKE, Mass. – It’s a fair bet that no team posed for more photos than the Pittsfield girls after their 52-47 win over South Hadley in the Western Massachusetts Class B Championship Game.
It was enough to fill an album.
A family album.
“This team goes, like, way back,” Harolyn Castillo said after recording a double-double for the top-seeded Generals. “There’s not enough words for this team, and I love them so much. Like, they literally are my family.
“And if it wasn’t for one another, we wouldn’t be here right now. I give props to the coach and everyone. We just pick each other up.”
Castillo scored 13 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and passed out four assists. Caprese Conyers scored a team-high 15 points, and Kyana Summers scored 10 points to go with seven boards and four assists.
The Generals mounted a 10-0 run in the third quarter to take control of a tight game and held off South Hadley the rest of the way to claim the crown.
Pittsfield won its 10th game of the row and 20th game of the season and got over the hump after falling in the last two Western Mass finals.
“It’s a beautiful feeling,” PHS coach Kristy Conyers said. “They wanted to get back. We played [South Hadley] last year in the championship. We knew it was going to be a battle.
“We actually play similar with pushing the ball, things of that nature. We knew we were the shorter team, and they fought it out. We have kids in foul trouble in the first half, next man up was ready to play.”
A back-and-forth first half ended when Bre’Jai Ellerbee (nine points) stole the ball and went the other way for a lay-up to give Pittsfield a 29-28 lead in the locker room.
And the teams traded field goals to start the second half with Castillo getting an and-one to put Pittsfield up, 35-32, with 6:16 left but Cara Dean (10 points) answering for the Tigers to again make it a one-point game.
That is when Pittsfield struck the decisive blow.
It started when Castillo was fouled trying to put back an offensive rebound and made both her shots at the charity stripe.
After Summers made one of her four steals, Conyers drove the lane for a basket to make it 39-34. Conyers then got a steal and lay-up to open up a seven-point lead.
A South Hadley turnover with 4:17 left in the third led to second-chance points at the other end: Caroline Sherman’s rebound setting up another bucket by Castillo.
Then, with 1:50 left in the quarter, another steal and layup from Conyers gave Pittsfield its biggest lead of the game, 45-34.
The Tigers closed to within seven going to the fourth and chipped away in a low-scoring period.
With 40 seconds on the clock, Dean put back a rebound to make it a one-score game at 50-47.
The Tigers opted to play defense instead of fouling right away. They committed their fourth foul of the quarter with 22 seconds left and fouled again with 17 on the clock to put Summers on the line. She made one shot to make it a four-point game but missed the second, and South Hadley’s Olivia Athas (10 points) got the rebound.
The Tigers missed at the other end, and Castillo battled for the rebound, which went out of bounds with 7.3 seconds on the clock.
With 6.4 left, Ellerbee went to the line. She made the first to make it 52-47 and missed the second, but Madison Stetz grabbed the offensive rebound and earned foul shots with 3.5 seconds left to play.
She came up empty, but the Tigers did not have enough time to advance the ball and get a good look at the basket as the buzzer sounded.
Kristy Conyers said her smaller lineup did a good job holding its own against South Hadley’s formidable front court.
“[Castillo] did great against their bigs,” Conyers said. “We had Maddie [Stetz] in foul trouble in the first half. Harolyn fought it out, boxing out. And our guards, we told them, ‘You guys have got to box out and get rebounds.’ And our guards will get rebounds.”
Pittsfield (20-1) earlier on Saturday learned it is seeded fifth in the Division 3 State Tournament that gets underway this week. The Generals can take a breath as they wait out a play-in game between No. 37 Whittier Tech and No. 28 Wilmington.
Whoever they face, the Generals will do it together.
“It’s emotional right now, I’m not gonna lie,” Kristy Conyers said. “This is a close-knit group. And when we say family, they are a family. As you see, we don’t have any one-on-one players. We don’t have anything like that. They play as a team, and they have really good passes to each other.”