ELITE EIGHT!

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

Winning ugly still counts. The North Adams Lady Devils proved that on Wednesday night. You don’t have to make every shot, every free throw or grab every rebound and loose ball. You just have to be tough enough to overcome all that and win. And win the Lady Devils did, in their biggest game of the season to this point.

On Wednesday night, the Lady Devils and their incredible fans, made the long trek to Logan High School, which no one really minded because Coach Rob Davis and his squad were back in the Division III regional semi-finals for the second consecutive season. Last season, the Lady Devils’ year ended in a heartbreaking last-second loss to Portsmouth West in the regional semis and this year’s team was determined not to let that hopeless feeling return.

Wednesday night’s opponent was certainly no pushover, the Fort Frye Cadets, who are a perennial visitor to regional and state tournaments. Both teams are known for their stingy defenses, so no one really expected a high-scoring affair, and that held true. What fans probably didn’t expect was the shooting difficulties that plagued both sides, a first half where they combined to score on just 11 of 49 attempts. To add to that, the Cadets finished the game shooting just 4 of 30 from beyond the three-point line. In the first half, the Lady Devils grabbed 12 offensive rebounds, and converted those to exactly zero points.

Even with all those numbers, the game was a tight one that came right down to the final shot. Falling behind by eight in the third quarter, the Lady Devils went on a game-changing 13-0 run to take a lead they never gave up, holding Fort Frye to just two fourth quarter points, escaping a last-second Cadets’ three-point attempt, and moving on to the Division III Elite Eight for the second time in school history with the thrilling 28-25 victory.

“ It’s always special to win here ast regionals and get that chance to go to state,” said Coach Davis in his C103 postame talk. “That was probably the best defense we’ve faced since Berlin Hiland here in 2020. We took care of the basketball early and then again late in the game. They’re quick and they could catch up with us and contest our shots and they were putting three girls back to keep us from running too much.”

The first quarter of the semi-final battle was a story of misfires and turnovers on both sides. North Adams did score on their first possession on a bucket by Harlee Brand, answered by a three-pointer from Fort Frye’s Kianna O’Brien. The Lady Devils went back up on a Katelynn Boerger score and a Kenlie Jones free throw, but then went scoreless over the next 4:26. The Cadets weren’t faring much better on the offensive end, getting a basket from Alyssa Duskey at the 1:29 mark to end the opening frame in a 5-5 deadlock.

North Adams stayed on top, by the the slimmest of margins, breaking their drought by scoring on their first three possessions of the second period. A jumper from the elbow by Jones, followed by the senior point guard driving the lane and going up and under for two. A free throw by McKenna Shelton put North Adams up 10-9. That lead increased when Karlie Kennedy got the friendly bounce on a long three-point try, but it was the Cadets who went deep to end the first half, getting triples from O’Brien and Emmie Duskey to take their first lead of the game and a 15-13 advantage into the halftime break.

The 10-minute break seemed to do more for Fort Frye as they played their only stretch of really good basketball in the first four minutes of the third quarter.A three-point play from Alyssa Duskey got things rolling and a later three-ball from Emmie Duskey suddenly gave the Cadets their biggest lead of the night at 23-15.

One thin, though about Rob Davis teams us that they don’t panic whatever the score. What did they do on this night? Nothing less than allow the Cadets just a single basket over the final 12 minutes of the game, while they took off on one of their patented runs to totally turn the game’s momentum.

“Our kids are tough,” said Coach Davis. “They don’t panic when they get down, they’re just different. We battled and I knew if we could get the ball inside we had a shot When these girls get in foul trouble, I trust them and when they are on the floor I just ask them to play hard and give us good minutes.”

The Lady Devils ended the third quarter on a 7-0 run, begging with another long Jones three-pointer, followed by Brand draining tow from the charity stripe and Boerger getting inside for a basket that sliced the Fort Frye lead to just one, 23-22, as the final period commenced.

Boerger had been saddled with foul trouble for most of the game, but she announced her presence in a big way as the final period began. The 6’1” junior took matters into her own hands and bullied her way to the bucket for scores on the first three North Adams possessions of the fourth stanza. That burst flipped the scoreboard to a 28-23 Lady Devils’ lead and were the last points the team in green scored in the game, Under normal conditions, that would be a red flag, but not on this night. The swarming North Adams defense kept the Cadets flustered and behind the three-point line, where they couldn’t buy a score, most shots not even close.

The final Fort Frye basket came with 3:18 to play and the Cadets squandered away opportunities when the Lady Devils gifted them with a trio of turnovers. With just over two minutes to play and North Adams in possession, the game became the Kenlie Jones “Curly Neal” ball handling exhibition. For nearly 90 seconds off the clock, the Lady Devils, with Jones giving the Cadets nothing but air to guard, played keep-away. The Cadets only had one team foul so needed to foul four more times to get the Lady Devils to the line.

With 32.8 seconds left, Fort Frye did foul and force the Lady Devils to inbound the ball sidecourt. Though Coach Davis vociferously called for a timeout, he was ignored and a five-second count was called, giving the ball back to the Cadets with a chance to tie with a three-pointer.

With that 32.8 seconds to work with, the Cadets worked the ball around and around and did not take a shot until less than 10 seconds remained. That shot was off the mark as well as a try on the rebound and a loose ball went out of bounds off the Lady Devils with 2 seconds to go, giving Fort Frye one more shot. The ball came into O’Brien in the corner but her contested shot was off the mark and a jubilant bunch of Lady Devils and their coaches could celebrate a trip to the Elite Eight with the heart-stopping 28-25 victory.

“Kenlie (Jones) is such a tough kid and they just couldn’t keep up with her late,” said Coach Davis. “Our defense locked down at the end of the game, it was tremendous.”

In the Sweet 16 win, the Lady Devils were paced in scoring by Katelynn Boerger’s 12 points, 10 of those coming in the second half. The always reliable Kenlie Jones added 8 points and did her usual exceptional job of handling the ball and the offense. Harlee Brand may have only tallied 4 points but she was a terror on defense, as most of the Lady Devils were in the win.

“Katelynn (Boerger) was frustrated in the first half,” said Davis. “But I told her that was over and that she was going to have to take over in the second half. We had some good interior passing and she just stepped it up for us.”

Fort Frye ends their season at 20-7 overall and they were led by 10 points from junior Emmie Duskey with Alyssa Duskey adding 7 and Kianna O’Brien 6. The CAders did nothing for their cause by hitting just one of five free throw attempts. along with the abovementioned difficukties from beyond the arc.

Now 21-5 overall, the Lady Devils move on to the Division III Elite Eight for the second time in school history, facing a tall task to attempt to punch their first-ever ticket to the Final Four in Dayton. North Adams will face off with the powerful and talented 21-5 Portsmouth Lady Trojans with that trip to the state tournament on the line. Tip off is scheduled for 7 p.m. back at Logan High School.

“Portsmouth is athletic and they can shoot, it will be a challenge for us,” added Davis. “One more step.”

North Adams

5 8 9 6—28

Fort Frye

5 10 8 2 —15

N. Adams (28): M. Shelton 0 1-2 1, Kennedy 1 0-0 3, Boerger 6 0-0 12, Brand 1 2-2 4, Jones 3 1-2 8, Team 11 4-6 28.

Fort Frye (25): E. Duskey 4 0-2 10, A. Duskey 3 1-1 7, Lang 1 0-0 2, O’Brien 2 0-0 6, Dowler 0 0-2 0, Team 10 1-5 25.

Three-Point Goals:

N. Adams (2)- Kennedy 1, Jones 1

Fort Frye (4)- O’Brien 2, e. Duskey 2