NEW BEDFORD — In one of the lowest-scoring games in recent memory, Barnstable still had a chance to pull it out.
Yet with just two seconds left in the game, the Red Raiders’ last-second attempt to take home a much-needed win fell short and the Barnstable girls’ basketball team headed home Friday night with a 29-28 loss.
Barnstable High School 8th grader Carly Whiteside led the Red Raiders with 8 points but it was not enough as New Bedford handed the guests a 29-28 defeat Friday night.
Sean Walsh/capecod.com sports
Barnstable is now 4-10 on the season and has not won since January 2. It will need to win its last five games in order to qualify for the postseason.
New Bedford’s Cassie White led all scorers with 13 points on the evening, including a critical 4th quarter three-pointer, while Jianna Heydt turned in 11 points for the Whalers (3-11), seven points of which came in the third quarter.
Barnstable actually had the upper hand in this one, building a 7-4 lead in the first quarter and increasing that margin to 16-8 at the end of the first half, thanks to some pretty intense rebounding efforts in the paint by junior Megan Dombrowski (10 rebs.) and junior forward Hannah Kerr (6 rebs.)
But the second half clearly belonged to the hard-pressing hosts who threw wrench after wrench into the Red Raiders’ plans and efforts. New Bedford outscored its guest, 21-12 in the second half.
Eighth grader Carly Whiteside led all Red Raider scorers with eight points while Angela MacLeod and senior captain Margot Rice each had six points.
“We had too many unforced turnovers,” head coach Vanessa Cedrone said. “We beat ourselves.”
Barnstable scored just four points in the third quarter — all from Whiteside, including 2-2 from the charity stripe — as a direct result of New Bedford’s vicious full-court press.
“It didn’t help that we haven’t played or practiced since last Thursday,” Cedrone said.
Still, Barnstable held a 20-19 lead after three quarters of play, but the Whalers’ press simply overcame the guests.
“They took the lead and went up by four points, but then Angela (MacLeod) hit a three with just over a minute left,” Cedrone explained. “We stopped them and they missed a shot and then got the offensive rebound so we had to foul. We got the ball with eight seconds left.”
In a situation like that, it only makes sense to get the ball to your team leader, and so to Rice the ball went but Rice’s shot as time expired fell short and with it, the Raiders’ hopes to snap this month-long losing spell.
“She (Rice) is the number one leader on the team,” Cedrone said.
Monday night will present a sizeable chance for Barnstable to pull itself out of this streak and right the ship as Sandwich visits Hyannis at 6:30 pm. The Blue Knights are having equal issues in terms of wins and losses with a 3-10 mark.
— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
About CapeCod.com NewsCenter
