BROCKTON, Mass. - After an impressive victory on Tuesday evening, Mansfield looked to keep their momentum rolling when they traveled to take on a very aggressive and talented Brockton team in the quarterfinals of the D1 South tournament. Unfortunately, the Hornets came up short, as the Boxers proved to be too physical and came away with a 62-49 victory.
The third quarter of Thursday's quarterfinal had the biggest impact on the game. Mansfield had a 25-24 lead entering the second half and Brockton was hungry and came out of the half strong.
At the beginning of the quarter, the Boxers and Hornets swapped baskets. Baskets from Toni Fairhurst and Jalani Jackson helped Brockton take a 27-25 lead but then Mansfield responded with baskets from Jackie Carchedi and Caroline Maher. The Boxers started to separate themselves when they went on a 10-0 run to create an eight-point cushion at 37-29. The score going into the final eight minutes of the game was 41-34 in favor of Brockton.
Being down seven going into the final quarter of play, Mansfield never surrendered and they played with passion in the first few minutes.
Janet Maher, playing in which turned to be the last quarter of her outstanding career, drained a pair of three-pointers. Maher's baskets helped Mansfield cut Brockton's lead to just three with the score 43-40. However, the Boxers stayed composed. They went on a 12-2 run which helped manufacture a 55-42 lead with just four minutes left to go in the game.
Toni Fairhurst, contributed with five of her 16 points and Jalani Jackson also helped with the other seven points during the run. Janet Maher scored her last basket of her career to make it a 57-46 game but Brockton just proved too be the more dominant team as they went on to pick up the victory. They advance into the D1 south semifinals.
Mansfield head coach Mike Redding offered his insight of what went happened in the second half.
"I don't think it was what went wrong,” he explained. “It was more of what they did right.”
Redding continued, “They made some three’s which they weren't making in the first half. When they were missing, Toni Fairhurst was all over the place on the offensive board. She's the biggest kid out there, she got some big rebounds and put backs. That was the difference. On the offensive end, we tried to get the ball to the basket but they're so physical and aggressive that it was tough to get there. I thought we should've went to the free throw line a little bit more than we did. It's tournament basketball, the refs let us play."
The first eight minutes of the game offered an up-tempo battle between the teams. Caroline Maher scored the first six points of the game for Mansfield which helped the Hornets get out to a 6-2 lead. Geornashi Silva Moore scored five of her 15 points during the quarter for Brockton. Sarah Mullahy played well for the Hornets during the quarter as she contributed four points.
Mansfield led 15-9 going into the second quarter and it appeared they were poised to pull an upset against the No. 2 seed.
The second quarter was when Brockton started to wake up offensively. The Boxers cut Mansfield's lead to three with the score 18-15 after they went on a 6-3 run with baskets from Tatiana Dias, Silva Moore, and Jackson. Both teams then swapped baskets back and forth including five of Jackson's game-high 20 points. Mansfield held the lead 25-22 going into the final half of their season.
Brockton played press defense throughout the game and it gave Mansfield some trouble. Coach Redding stated, "We got the ball in and broke it but we never took advantage. We didn't get any three on two's and they never let us get into our sets. They don't let you do what you want to do to set up and run our screen game. We had to play a little playground basketball and that favored them with their aggressiveness."
Although his team lost the game, Redding was very pleased with Mansfield's effort in a very tough atmosphere. He remarked, "We played hard. We were in the game with 5-6 minutes to go. They just had that great run where they hit some threes and came away with turnovers. We were at Brockton against a two seed with a chance to win with 4-5 minutes left."
He added, "I'm proud of how hard we played. We've got some young kids playing first time in the tournament. The freshmen and sophomores came to play tonight and they gave Brockton all they could handle."
Coach Redding concluded with some very heartfelt comments about his senior captain Janet Maher and the rest of his seniors. "[Janet] is so valuable out there. She can hit the three and she rebounds. She gave us everything for her four years and we're going to miss her."
Maher said, "It's tough to see my senior season come to an end. It's definitely very sad for it to be my last game tonight especially playing with the seniors and my sister for the last time."
Redding finished up saying, "I'm just so proud of what they accomplished this year after last year. To go from four wins to 15 wins, with our league and division, is a big turnaround and the seniors certainly led the way."
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