Four teams are still standing in the MIAA Division 4 girls basketball state bracket.
South Hadley is one of them.
The No. 8 Tigers continue to find ways to win games, and they’ve won all three of their games in the state tournament thus far. They will travel to Framingham High School on Tuesday to face fourth-seeded Amesbury in the semifinals at 5 p.m.
The meeting with Amesbury (19-4) will mark the first time South Hadley will play a higher-seeded in the state tournament. The Tigers defeated No. 25 Uxbridge, No. 9 Notre Dame Worcester and No. 16 Cohasset in their three state tournament wins.
It’ll also be the first time South Hadley (17-6) is playing outside its home gymnasium in the tournament.
“We’re tough to beat on this court,” Dubuc said after the win over Cohasset on Friday. “We’re going to get on a neutral court, we’ll go on a bus and we’ll play them as tough as we can play them.”
Amesbury will have a distinct size advantage over the Tigers, though that won’t be anything new for South Hadley. The Tigers have been the smaller team in just about every game this year, but it hasn’t deterred them. They held a decisive edge on the boards against the Skippers in the Round of 8 despite Cohasset being the bigger team.
Stopping Amesbury starts with having a plan for Avery Hallinan. The senior is a 1,000-point scorer, was the Cape Ann League MVP, and has lived up to the billing when the lights have been the brightest.
In the state tournament, Hallinan scored 33 points in Amesbury’s Round of 32 win against Cape Cod Academy. She then dropped 25 points — 16 coming in the first half — in the Sweet 16 against Frontier and in the Elite 8, she put up 25 points to lead Amesbury past Hamilton-Wenham, 56-37.
Amesbury center Olivia DeLong has also been a problem for opponents with her height in the paint.
“We’ll keep on pushing and go hard every day,” Tigers senior Olivia Marion said on Friday after being asked what it’ll take to continue winning in the postseason. “We’ll keep working and stay together as a team.”
The winner between South Hadley and Amesbury will take on the winner of the other semifinal between No. 3 Lunenburg and No. 10 Millbury in the Div. 4 championship game at the Tsongas Center in Lowell at a date and time to be determined. Lunenburg and Millbury will play their semifinal game on Wednesday in Worcester.