SHEFFIELD, Mass. -- The Mount Greylock girls basketball team Saturday played its best defense of the year.
And it turned a lot of that defense into quick offense en route to a 39-20 win over Mount Everett.
"The second quarter, we played great," Mount Greylock coach John Jacobbe said. "We got some runouts. We've been trying to play a little faster.
"Molly [Sullivan] ended up matching up with their point guard, which wasn't our plan. They just went out and matched up that way. And whenever we got a rebound, Molly was able to leak out, and she's done a great job."
Sullivan finished with eight points and had two transition baskets in a decisive 10-0 spurt late in the second quarter to put the game out of reach for the Mounties.
That run was actually part of a larger 19-0 run that spanned the first and second quarters.
After Emma Goewey got her second bucket off an offensive rebound in the early going to give the Eagles a 5-4 lead, Mount Everett was not able to score again until after half-time.
Sullivan gave Mount Greylock the lead for good with a transition score midway through the first to make it 6-5.
It was a four-point margin after one quarter, and an eight-point bulge when Kaylie Bryan scored with 5 minutes, 21 seconds left in the half.
A couple of minutes later, Mount Greylock delivered the knockout blow, scoring on five straight possessions to open a 23-5 lead.
In addition to Sullivan's fast break points, the Mounties got baskets from Emma Stevens, Delaney Babcock and Charlotte Coody during that stretch.
Babcock finished with a game-high 12 points. Coody scored five and grabbed 14 rebounds.
Mount Everett got a team-high eight from Emily Steuernagle. Goewey finished with seven points and 10 rebounds.
"We knew she's a good player," Jacobbe said of Goewey, who scored 14 the first time the teams played. "She's a great offensive rebounder. We put Delaney on her, and when Delaney fronted her to try to keep it out of the post, she got caught. And we needed to rotate over and keep the defense in front and behind.
"But we did a good job defensively. We held them to 20 points overall, so that's a great effort."
Mount Greylock's offense tapered off after half-time, never matching the momentum of that second-quarter explosion. But the Mounties' defense kept the Eagles from ever making a real dent in the margin.
It was a 23-point game late before a basket by Goewey and a pair of free throws from Steuernagle got the final margin back in the teeens.
Mount Everett (1-5) is scheduled to go to Monument Mountain on Monday. Mount Greylock (3-6) hosts the Spartans on Tuesday.
