HADLEY — The Mahar girls basketball team was on top of Hopkins Academy from whistle to whistle Thursday night.
The full-court press and off-ball defense of the Senators proved to be too much for the Golden Hawks to overcome in a 65-41 loss.
The Golden Hawks are now 8-4 overall and 1-1 in the Franklin North.
Hopkins came out in a full-court press to start the game as well, the only problem was that Mahar’s players were just too quick to contain.
“We tried to come out and put some pressure on them to control the tempo of the game, but we just ended up getting in foul trouble,” said Hopkins coach Fred Ciaglo. “Mahar is very athletic, their first step was quicker than ours.”
Not only was Mahar quicker, but it was more relentless on the boards.
“What killed us was their offensive rebounding,” said Ciaglo. “We did not do a good job of boxing out and taking care of the boards.”
At the end of the third and start of the fourth quarter, Hopkins was able to chip away at Mahar’s sizable lead when Samantha Jenks scored all 13 points during a 13-2 run that pulled the Golden Hawks within 49-36.
However, just when it seemed like Hopkins was going to get back into the game, Mahar put together a 10-0 run of its own to end the game.
Jenks finished with a game-high 22 points. Allison Kowal-Safron added eight points in defeat.
Things do not get easier for the Golden Hawks, who visit Lee (9-1) on Monday.
“We will go into practice tomorrow and work on more zone presses,” said Ciaglo. “We do want to press and keep the tempo up. We know Lee is good, we have seen them before and they are having another great year.”