FALMOUTH – Most high school basketball coaches worth their salt pride themselves on teaching defense.
For Gus Adams and his 4th-seeded Falmouth Academy girls (18-3), last night’s Division 4 South Sectional tourney opener was a display of precisely that credo: “defense wins championships.”
Falmouth Academy head coach Gus Adams and his Mariner girls will face Upper Cape Tech Friday night in the Division 4 South quarterfinals after sending Sacred Heart home packing, 44-27.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports file photo
The host Mariners eliminated the 13th-seeded Sacred Heart team (10-11), 44-27, after running and gunning out to an early 17-8 lead in the first quarter.
Academy sharpshooters Kendall Currence and Jane Earley both buried three-pointers to start the bleeding and each finished with seven first quarter points. The Mariners built upon that lead in the second frame with a 26-14 advantage at halftime.
By the end of the third quarter, Falmouth Academy had turned their game up another level, holding the girls from Kingston to just two points en route to a 40-16 lead Sacred Heart had little chance of recovering from.
“It was a defensive clinic,” Coach Adams said. “It became a sloppy football game in the fourth quarter.”
Currence finished with a game-high 18 points and Earley tallied 11 points to pace the offensive side of things for the Mariners, but it was senior Eliza Van Voorhis who was a defensive whirlwind throughout, garnering 11 rebounds and six blocked shots to go along with seven points. Fellow Mariner stalwart Christie Brake tacked on eight rebounds in the effort.
Sacred Heart’s Lauren Melchiondo led her squad with 11 points.
The win was the first MIAA tournament win for Falmouth Academy in school history as it switched conferences this season to the Cape & Islands League and clinched the co-championship with the St. John Paul II Lions girls little over a week ago.
Falmouth Academy next faces the 5th-seeded Upper Cape Tech Rams who also finished the regular season with a 17-3 record and defeated Old Colony Voke last night to advance with the Mariners to the Division 4 South Quarterfinals on Friday (Feb. 27).
The game will be held at Falmouth Academy at 6:30 pm.
— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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