AMHERST — Kayla Henry dove to the Curry Hicks Cage’s floor to snag a loose ball.
A North Middlesex defender reached late and fouled the Belchertown senior. Henry turned her eyes to the rafters as she walked to the free-throw line.
The Western Massachusetts Division 2 Tournament girls basketball semifinal was tied with 6 minutes, 53 seconds left. Henry had missed 13 of 17 free throws up to that point, and she was shooting one-and-one.
“The rim’s different from most of the rims we play on, and the whole atmosphere (is different,” Henry said. “My teammates kept telling me to take a deep breath and just hit it.”
She made two free throws to give No. 1 Belchertown a lead it wouldn’t relinquish in a 46-36 win.
The Orioles (17-4) are back in the Western Mass. final for the second time in three years. They’ll play either No. 2 Longmeadow (11-9) or No. 3 Pittsfield (13-7) at 5:45 p.m. Saturday. The other semifinal is at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cage.
“We just want that championship,” Belchertown senior Cara McKenzie said. “No matter who it’s gonna be, we’re gonna give it our all.”
McKenzie helped spark the run that put the game out of reach.
North Middlesex’s Madeline Harrington blocked her shot with 1:53 left. McKenzie picked up the offensive rebound and went back up for a 39-36 lead.
“I was thinking ‘this is not my last game for BHS basketball.’ I was going to give everything had,” said McKenzie, who finished with 10 points. “I was going to put in all the work I could to put the ball in the basket.”
Belchertown finished the game on a 9-0 run composed largely of fast-break points by Henry and Anna-Elise Pikul.
“I’ve got some unbelievably gifted athletes out there,” Belchertown coach Jay Woodcock said. “These girls are faster than you can imagine. It paid off in the end.”
Both teams started slowly in the beginning. They combined for 10 points in the first quarter, five for each team. Henry didn’t make any field goals and missed all of her free throws.
“I feel like I was forcing hard in the first half,” Henry said.
She opened the second quarter with a 3-pointers that started a 7-0 run for a 12-5 lead with 5:29 until halftime.
McKenzie picked up her third foul with 49.8 seconds remaining in the first half, but Woodcock left her in, and she didn’t pick up any more the rest of the game.
“We need her on defense to rebound,” he said. “She played very smart. It’s a risk I took that worked out.”
North Middlesex regained the lead, 18-16, by halftime on a 3-pointer by Hadley Beauregard (14 points) with 13 seconds to go.
Belchertown altered its defense in the third quarter to match how the Patriots attacked it. The Orioles moved Quinn Roche out from the post to defend on the perimeter because North Middlesex started to overload sides of the floor with its post players, leaving just two defenders to guard three players in Belchertown’s 1-3-1 defense.
“She came in and was a big difference-maker on D,” Woodcock said.
With the defense properly aligned, Belchertown ran more in the second half and built the lead it needed.
“If we had to script a win where we had to claw back and fight adversity, we did,” Woodcock said.
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com.
Belchertown 46,
North Middlesex 36
North Middlesex (12-9)
Beauregard 6-2-14, O’Neil 3-0-9, Young 3-2-11, Hackley 1-0-2. Totals 12-4-36
Belchertown (17-4)
Duffy 1-0-3, Henry 7-9-27, Pikul 1-0-2, Roche 0-0-0, LeBlanc 0-0-0, S. Birks 1-0-2, McKenzie 5-0-10, Mastalerz 1-0-2. Totals 16-9-46
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By KYLE GRABOWSKI |
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@kylegrbwsk |
3-Pointers—North Middlesex 7 (Beauregard 2, O’Neil 3, Young 2), Belchertown 3 (Henry 2, Duffy)