WEST NEWBURY — The Cape Ann League girls basketball title returns to Pentucket.
Pentucket clinched the CAL girls regular season championship Monday with a 43-34 victory over North Reading.
“It is always a war when Pentucket and North Reading play,” said Panthers coach John McNamara. “They had one loss coming in the league coming, shoutout Bob Romo and that program, he is a great coach. But it felt good to get it done tonight.”
This was the second matchup of the two titans of the CAL with PRHS getting the best of the matchup both times. Pentucket appeared to set the tone pretty early on by getting the game’s first two baskets. North Reading battled back to tie the score at four.
The Panthers set up a very tenacious defensive press on full and half court situations on that side of the ball and broke the Hornet’s press with regular ease. Pentucket would control the pace of play for several possessions in a row, but could not seem to get the rhythm to pull away. North Reading would make up ground quickly. The Hornets treaded water for the rest of the opening frame trailing 12-9 until junior captain Amelia Crowe hit a half-court buzzer beater to make the margin 15-9.
The second quarter saw more of the same with Pentucket working more methodically on offense in the half court and not allowing North Reading to get in much of a rhythm with the ball in their hands. Both teams traded several free throws throughout the quarter with Pentucket pulling away late with a few layups to make it 24-16 at half.
To open the second half, both teams went on a bit of a shooting spree with four of the first five field goals made being three-pointers, with three of them going to the home team; the shooting later cooled off and North Reading was still hanging around down 34-27, cutting one point off the lead.
The Hornets started hot in the fourth and cut the lead down to three with five minutes to go. This is when Pentucket took over with a dominating performance on the offensive glass and grabbing extra possessions to drain the clock and clutch free throws down the stretch to pull it out by nine points at the end.
“Clinching the CAL is the best feeling in the world right now, nothing can describe how that feels.” added Pentucket captain Crowe after the game with her game-high 18 point performance. “These games are the best because our defense has been practicing for this game for weeks and it was a total team effort.”
The game could be summed up by Pentucket being the better team for sustained periods, then North Reading would claw back quickly, but Pentucket would make a couple more plays at the end of each quarter to make the difference. Each team should get a high seed in the tournament and are both ranked in the top 10 currently in Division 3.