NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- Mount Everett girls basketball coach Scott Rote was happy to see his star player get in an offensive groove and score 19 points, happy to see his bench step up and contribute big minutes and, mostly, happy to see his Eagles play a game.
Mount Everett emerged from a two-week “hibernation” to run its record to 3-1 with a 57-21 win over McCann Tech on Friday night.
“It’s good to get out,” Rote said. “We haven’t played in 12 days. “It’s a nightmare because, only having eight kids, it’s hard to do a lot of things. We can’t create this fast-paced play, the aggressive play we do here with only eight, nine kids.
“We’ve had some graduates in, kids coming back from college, to help us out. But even with that, there just weren’t enough kids around. … We were almost going to go against the boys’ JV or something. But both programs at the school are so young; our JV programs have a lot of seventh- and eighth-graders.”
Games will come more regularly from here on out for the Eagles, who played their first two games on the first two days of the season, back on Dec. 7 and 8, and then had just a Dec. 15 road trip to Monson before Friday night.
On Wednesday, the Eagles get into Berkshire County play when Pittsfield visits Sheffield, and on Friday, the county was getting ready for Mount Everett.
“Tonight, we had Hoosac [scouts] here, we had Wahconah here, we had Pittsfield here, we had everybody here,” Rote said.
“I don’t think I’ve seen that many scouts at one of our games in a long, long time, until it was tournament time at least. It’s cool that people recognize that we’re good. When we play smart and we play fast, we’re good.”
The Eagles came out of the gates fast in the quarter on Friday, outscoring the Hornets, 23-6, with Carpenter scoring seven and Madison Ullrich adding six in the first eight minutes.
It was 17-6 after McCann Tech’s Natalie Diesz (team-high eight points) hit a jumper on the baseline, but the Eagles answered with six straight to end the quarter.
First, Ullrich set up Sarah Beckwith with a crosscourt pass for a jumper from the right wing. Then Ullrich got to the line and sank a pair of shots. Finally, Ullrich put back one of her 10 rebounds to cap the run.
Rebounding was a big advantage for the Eagles in the early going.
“They’re a strong rebounding team,” McCann Tech coach Kathy Budaj said. “We did get better at it as the game went on.
“The first quarter, we did not get back on defense. How many lay-ups did they get? It was awful. … We’re learning, but when you give up that kind of stuff -- that’s why I called an early timeout right away. That doesn’t take talent, that just takes effort.
“And that’s one thing I’m trying to get these guys to understand: When you play better teams, you have to run the court.”
Aimee Dowling and Jennie Modena had six rebounds apiece for McCann Tech (3-2), which got four points apiece from Dowling and Aubrey Tetlow.
Mount Everett got 12 points from Tori Seward and nine from Madeline Von Ruden to back up Carpenter’s 19.
“Madison Ullrich was a bear on the boards,” Rote said. “It was nice seeing [Marion] Devoti hit a couple of shots. You can see when we get our wing penetration and that high post play, she’s got either a nice give-and-go or a jump shot if she’d just take the shot. We can’t get Marion to shoot the ball enough.
“And Tori Seward had a good game, and Von Ruden is coming on. Von Ruden is becoming a big role player for us with her speed and her quickness and her defensive prowess.”
Mount Everett plays two league games this week, hosting the Generals on Wednesday before going to Monument Mountain on Friday.
McCann Tech hosts Mohawk Trail on Tuesday.
