CORTLAND SURGES LATE-KNOCKS OFF LADY SPARTANS -SECTION III GIRLS HOOPS
Cortland’s Maggie Brown (3) drives into 4/5 of the Lady Spartans en route to a fourth quarter basket.
Jeff Pexton-MHTS-PGI
Cortland erased a 31-27 deficit early in the fourth quarter and outscored New Hartford 16-4 in the final 8 minutes to win tonight’s Section III, Class “A” Girl’s Basketball game at Chittenango High School.
Cortland, seeded #3 in the tournament, may want to consider a color change from Purple Tigers to Brown Tigers, after tonight’s 26 point effort from senior Maggie Brown.
Tonight’s tallies made Brown Cortland’s all time leading scorer in girl’s basketball. Brown has averaged 24.8 points per game this season, and has scored 508 points including tonight’s performance. Brown Tigers sort of has a ring to it now, don’t you think?
Lady Spartans forward Amy Evans (13) drives for 2 of her team high 15 points.
For the second time in as many games Cortland head coach Dick Penoyer moved Brown from the guard position to the front line in the second half, which ignited the Tigers on the boards, where New Hartford was winning all the rebounding battles in the first half.
Penoyer made the same move in Cortland’s quarterfinal win over East Syracuse Minoa.
The Spartans came out with an up tempo style to start the game and enjoyed leads of four and six points in the first quarter, before Cortland center Devon Tennant put back a rebound to tie the score at 12-12 after the first 8 minutes.
The Spartans and head coach Mike Callan had to be happy with the first quarter effort, especially since Maggie Brown was held to just six points.
The second quarter saw the Lady Spartans, ranked 16th in the most recent State Sportswriter’s Class “A” poll, start to rack up the personal fouls, something that would come back to haunt them late in the ball game.
Fortunately for the Spartans however, the Purple Tigers were 0 for 8 from the line, which allowed the ladies in white to maintain a 21-18 advantage headed into the intermission.
Spartans sophomore Amy Evans scored 7 of her team high 15 points in the second quarter to keep her team out in front.
Theano Alvanos (12) makes a move around Cortland's Julia Babjack (11) in the early going.
The third quarter was a continuation of foul troubles for the Lady Spartans and with Brown shifted to the front line and working in the paint, the sensational senior was fouled eight times in the third quarter.
Though Brown didn’t score a field goal in the third quarter, she was 5 of 6 from the charity stripe, even with her rare one handed free throw style.
The Lady Spartans got seven of their nine third quarter points from Amy Evans again and second seeded New Hartford carried a 31-27 lead to the final period.
The fourth quarter saw Maggie Brown do what the great ones do best, turn up their game at the precise moment their team needs, wants and relies upon them to do – win it.
Brown did just that for her Tigers, scoring 13 points in the final eight minutes to drive past the exhausted Lady Spartans, who saw three of their leaders Theano Alvanos, Kelly Bishop and Lexie Raynard all foul out of the ball game.
In the end the Lady Tigers took this one by a score of 43-35. Cortland, who improved to (17-3) entered tonight’s action as the State’s #21 Class “A” team, will meet the winner of #1 seed Jamesville-DeWitt and fourth seeded Carthage, who square off tomorrow night.
J-D’s Lady Rams are ranked 8th in New York at (18-1).
Spartans senior Ashley Chanatry (22) leads a fast break late in the ball game.
New Hartford finishes another great season at (16-4) and will say emotional goodbyes to seniors Ashley Chanatry, Theano Alvanos, Lexie Raynard, Alex Romano and Marisa Mauro. Congratulations ladies and thanks for the memories!
Cortland 43 New Hartford 35
Box Score
1 2 3 4 Total
Cortland 12 6 9 16 43
New Hartford 12 9 10 4 35
MHTS Scoring Summary:
New Hartford:
Amy Evans-15
Theano Alvanos-8
Ashley Chanatry-6
Kelly Bishop-4
Aleix Jackson-2
Cortland
Maggie Brown-26
Amanda DeGraff-5
Julia Babjack-4
Devon Tennant-4
Shari Ann Jones-2
Taylor Tabel-2
