NORTHAMPTON – In a week full of nailbiters on the basketball court, the Northampton girls basketball team added to the list and pulled off a comeback for the ages on Thursday night with a 69-67 victory against Holyoke. 

It’s been an up-and-down season for the Blue Devils thus far – after their win over the Purple Knights, they currently have a .500 record and are 1-0 in Valley League play. But more important to head coach Perry Messer than wins is his team’s effort. That showed in their game against Holyoke, but to get the fuller picture, you have to go back one more game. 

Before facing off against the Knights, Northampton played host to Central two days earlier. Unlike their Thursday night victory, their Tuesday night game was one the Blue Devils probably want to forget. They got shellacked by the Golden Eagles 62-33, not the outcome they wanted in the least. Despite the outcome, the end of that game showed a glimmer of what the Blue Devils could be.

“We had a talk the other night. We got hammered pretty good by Central, but I told them if I come down to the locker room, and you play that hard, I don’t care what the end result is on the (scoreboard),” Messer said. “I’m going to coach the same way from start to finish, so they should be playing in the same way. At the end of the (Central) game, I said everybody else in Western Mass – if you play that hard, you’re going to be in those games. And I think they took it to heart.” 

They put that message into action against Holyoke, who at one point had a 17-point lead over Northampton. It didn’t matter how deep of a hole the Blue Devils were in – they kept doing the little things right, crashing the boards and looking ahead for a smart pass, and it paid off. 

“We’ve always been a team that can adapt to anything. So even if we’re down, we can always come back. We know we’re capable of that, and that’s exactly what we proved,” Northampton’s Ava Azzaro said. 

That doesn’t just come down to the players who score the ball most, like Azzaro, Jordan Hutchins and Bri Heafey for Northampton. The player that Messer made sure to highlight postgame was the one who had the toughest defensive assignment – trying to limit Holyoke superstar Bianca Ortiz. 

“I thought Teagan McDonald was a big difference in the game for us. She came off the bench, and you know that Ortiz is their player…she did the job of staying on her left hand,” Messer said. “I said if she’s going to make shots, make them be two pointers not of three-pointers, make her have to drive off that line.” 

Ortiz still rattled off 28 points, but only three of those shots were triples, and Heafey also made a strong offensive play that forced Ortiz to take her fifth foul with two crucial minutes left in the game, giving Northampton just enough room to secure the win. 

There’s still a lot of games left to be played, but the Blue Devils are finally getting healthy again and regaining chemistry back on the floor. 

“They all like each other, and that goes a long way,” Messer says. “They don’t care who has success as long as the team has success, so that makes it easy...it’s as fun group to coach.” 

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