GARDNER — The Mahar A girls summer basketball team faced a full, 11-player Conant roster during Monday’s summer playoff game. It proved too much for Mahar A, as Conant won 38-24.
The win sends Mahar A into a final consolation game on today at 6 p.m., while Conant moves on to the championship game, also today.
Conant played suffocating defense against Mahar A too, holding the opponent to only 10 first-half points.
“(Conant was) phenomenal on defense today, they never got tired and they never stopped hustling,” said Mahar A coach Lee Rowe. “I told the coach after the game, that’s the best I’ve seen them play all year. They played really well as a team. It was impressive.”
It didn’t help that Mahar A went desolate on the offensive side of the ball either, missing multiple third and fourth chances at the basket, while also missing several free throws throughout the game.
“I told them before the game started, ‘I’ve been tracking all year, they’re shooting 18 percent on the summer season,’” said Rowe. “We need to improve upon that dramatically. I told them if they could shoot 30 percent today, they’d win. We probably shot right around the 18 percent mark today.”
Mahar A went periods of five and eight minutes without making a basket in the first half, while also going nine minutes in the second half without making a basket.
“It’s frustrating because if you watch them in warm-ups, they’ll hit those shots,” said Rowe. “During the pace of the game, for some reason, their mechanics are off a little bit and I told a couple of them I want them to spend the summer just working on the same shot, repetitive shots, same location. They’ll get better.”
Mahar A’s Micalyn Mailloux returned to the lineup after missing her team’s previous game against Conant and scored a team-high 11 points. She netted a flawless layup through traffic with 16:48 left in the second half and followed it up with an open three a little more than three minutes later, moving the game to 31-18.
“She played very well today,” said Rowe. “It was nice to have her back. She gives a little stability to our backcourt, which is kind of nice because now I can put the forwards where they belong opposed to one of them play up as a guard, which we did the other game.”
After Mailloux brought the game to within six at 11-5 at the 9:41 mark during the first half, Mahar A went more than eight minutes without making a basket, allowing Conant to go on a 13-0 run and move out front 24-5. Mahar A couldn’t make up the gap, pulling only as close as 13 points on two separate occasions in the second half.
Conant led 27-10 at halftime.
Jazmyn Vautour contributed a team-high nine points for Mahar A as well as four points. Siobhan Davis contributed five rebounds for Mahar A.