WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- After leading most of the game, the Mount Greylock girls Tuesday night saw a 10-point lead evaporate in the third quarter against East Longmeadow.
Then … let’s let their coach pick up the story.
“We got to the foul line, and we missed the one-and-one,” Jacobbe said. “And Ciera Schwarzer, who had a great second half, came up with the big offensive rebound, kicked it out to Maddie Albert, and we got a 3.”
That kickout kick started a 6-0 Mounties run to the end of the quarter, and Mount Greylock went on to a 57-44 win.
The Spartans, who pushed Mount Greylock in a 40-38 Mounties win on Dec. 29, battled back to make it a one-possession game six times in the fourth quarter.
But each time, the home team had the answer.
First, Nicole Coolidge put back an offensive rebound for the Spartans to make it 37-36. But at the other end, Schwarzer converted a rebound, and two possessions later, Emma Stevens drove the left wing to push the lead back to five, 42-37.
East Longmeadow got two free throws on its next possession. But Schwarzer answered with a bucket in the post.
A Gianna Langone basket in the post. A Delaney Babcock foul shot.
A Kiersten Dieni free throw for East Longmeadow to make it 45-42. A Schwarzer foul shot to start an eight-point Mount Greylock run that ended with Madison Ross scoring in transition for her 12th point of the game and a 53-42 Mount Greylock lead with 2 minutes, 23 seconds on the clock.
Maddie Albert scored eight in the first quarter en route to a career-high 15, and Babcock scored 12. Babcock and Schwarzer also did yeoman’s work on the glass, battling East Longmeadow bigs Langone and Coolidge.
“They played hard all night long against a much bigger team,” Jacobbe said of his team. “I thought our compete level was where it needs to be.
“We are the size that we are. And if they have two big girls -- they might have both been 6-footers -- you can’t give inside position. I thought when they made their run, we were giving up the inside position. And in the later stages, when we held on and built up a little lead, we were taking away the inside position -- limiting their 3s and taking away their bigs, and that’s when we pushed it back up to 10.”
Albert was huge in the first quarter as Mount Greylock jumped out to a 14-6 lead. A couple of turnovers from the Mounties’ press in the middle of the quarter led to an Albert transition lay-up and another Albert score off a feed from Schwarzer to make it a six-point game. Then Babcock capped an 8-0 run with a transition basket off an Albert rebound.
East Longmeadow got within two in the second quarter, but a Brook Masse free throw, a Ross putback and a Stevens make at the line helped the Mounties take a 20-16 lead into the locker room.
Mount Greylock stormed out of the break with an 11-5 spurt to go up, 31-21, when Ross drove the right wing midway through the third. But the Mounties went cold for about three minutes, and the Spartans capitalized, eventually tying the game at 31-31, setting the stage for Schwarzer’s drive-starting rebound.
Mount Greylock (4-6) will look to win its third straight when it goes to Westfield on Thursday.
