NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Drury girls basketball team finished the regular season with a win over Mount Greylock, 49-41, Wednesday night in Bucky Bullett Gymnasium.
Alison Felix led the way for Drury with 16 points, including seven points in a game-defining third quarter. Brooke DiGennaro added 12 and Haley Shook scored nine.
For Drury (11-8) it was just one more tune up before the tournament, but for Mount Greylock (9-11) it was do or die.
In the last game of the season, Mount Greylock needed a win to secure a spot in the Western Mass tournament. Unfortunately for the Mounties, Drury came out firing.
After Mount Greylock took the opening lead, Drury went on a 7-0 run to put Mount Greylock in chase mode early on. Good ball movement allowed Drury to move the ball side to side and penetrate the zone for easy hoops. Once it established the inside, it was able to kick out for open looks beyond the arc.
The Blue Devils knocked down three 3-pointers in the first quarter and closed the period up, 14-7. The second quarter saw a scoring drought early on with both teams being sloppy with the ball. It wasn’t until midway through the quarter Drury started to see the ball go through the hoop. It went on another 7-0 run and finished the half up 26-12.
Things started to heat up in the third quarter with Mount Greylock showing some fight with its season on the line. Greylock was able to cut the deficit to six points with four minutes to go in the quarter. The Mounties upped the defensive pressure and started to force Drury into turnovers. Mount Greylock went on a 12-4 run at the beginning of the quarter.
The closest Mount Greylock got was five points, but with less than a minute left in the quarter, Kayla McGrath knocked down a big 3 to push the lead back up to double digits.
“We’ve had games in the past where we’ve given up these types of leads,” Drury coach Ian Downey said. "We knew a team that’s hungry like Greylock, who needs to win, was not going to give up at half. So we knew we had to be ready to counter back, and I thought we did a decent job withstanding a couple runs by them and not getting frustrated.”
Drury built off of that momentum at the end of the quarter by going on a 6-0 run to start the fourth and essentially ending the game. Mount Greylock traded a few baskets and put some pressure on Drury. But the Blue Devils hit a few free throws to ice the game.
This was the last game of the regular season for Drury and they will now look towards the post season with the draw coming on Saturday.
“We’ve worked all year to get to this point, now we have a week to sure up some things but we are doing things we need to to win.” Downey added. “As long as we play Drury basketball I think we will be OK.
“We’re not ready to just say we are ready for the tournament we have practices and need to watch some tape to make sure we button some things up.”