HOLYOKE — Ashley Vazquez could not miss.
After Kleriz Matos knocked down a 3-pointer to open the game, Vazquez knocked down one triple and then another for Holyoke early in the first quarter, extending her team’s lead to 9-2 in the opening minutes. A couple plays later, Vazquez hit yet another triple and forced Northampton to take a timeout just three minutes into the opening quarter. She skipped back into the huddle with a swagger and confidence that defined Holyoke’s play on Monday night in the Class A Western Mass. quarterfinal contest.
The third-seeded Purple Knights knocked down 11 triples total in a 74-57 win over No. 6 Northampton. Perez led the way for her squad, dropping 22 points just ahead of Yamaya Perez, who finished the game with 20. Holyoke very nearly had three scorers with at least 20 points; Bianca Ortiz finished the game with 19 points for Holyoke.
The teams split their regular season series heading into Monday’s matchup, so the quarterfinal was a chance for one team to show which was the better of the two. The Purple Knights came into the game determined to prove that it was them.
“We wanted to show them that they can’t hang with us,” Vazquez said.
It would have been a closer game if Northampton weren’t playing without two of their starters. Freshman Bri Heafey was out with an ACL injury, and the team’s lone senior, Riley Allen, was also hurt and out of the game. Up against a healthy Holyoke team playing with confidence in front of its home crowd, Northampton faced an uphill battle from the start.
“It changes your whole season,” Northampton head coach Perry Messer said on his team’s injuries. “When we had everybody here, we beat that team by five points. Bri is a big difference maker for us. The good part is Chloe Derby, Teagan (McDonald) and Sofia (Ciaglo), they got thrown to the wolves, but they’re putting themselves in a lot better (places) now than they were two or three weeks ago. That’s all I asked.”
The first half was lights out for Holyoke. Vazquez finished with 11 points in the first quarter, and the Purple Knights went on a 17-2 run in the first four minutes of the contest. Northampton managed to collect themselves and start scoring late, with Chloe Denhart, Ava Azzaro, and Jordan Hutchins all finding the scoresheet, but the Purple Knights still led 25-11 after the first.
That 14-point lead was something that the Blue Devils couldn’t ever make up. It was more of a back-and-forth affair in the second, but Holyoke kept slowly building its lead. Azzaro got a bucket for Northampton, but then Matos crushed a triple. Azzaro struck again, but then Perez hit back-to-back layups. Holyoke had an answer for everything Northampton tried to throw at it; the Knights ended the second quarter on an 8-4 run to give them a 44-27 lead going into the half.
“We had to have four strong quarters, because every time we played (Northampton) we either had two or three,” Matos said on her team’s consistent play. “So this game we had to come in mentally prepared and strong to be able to take the ’dub how we did.”
Northampton’s second-half effort kept it within striking distance. Though Holyoke managed to build up as much as a 20-point lead in the third quarter off of a Perez bomb from beyond the arc, they kept trying to get back into the game. After the Purple Knights hit the 70-point mark, Northampton put together a 6-0 run to pull within 13 points, but it proved to be too little, too late for the Blue Devils.
Matos called the win a ‘relief,’ but if Holyoke was nervous, they didn’t show it. The chemistry that the team played with on both sides of the ball was evident to everybody watching the game, and that confidence has carried them a long way this season.
“They’re pretty special. They believe in themselves and they have a lot of pride in what they do,” Holyoke head coach Andrea Enright said. “They want to protect our home court. They want to show people what Holyoke basketball is all about.”
The Purple Knights will now play at No. 2 Chicopee in the Class A semifinal on Wednesday.