Hopedale Stops Drury in State Final
LOWELL, Mass. -- Phoebe Carroll scored 23 points, and the Hopedale girls basketball team held off Drury down the stretch to earn a 48-35 win in the Division 5 State Championship Game at UMass-Lowell's Tsongas Center.
The top-seeded Blue Devils trailed by 11 points at the end of the third quarter but rallied to cut the margin to five points when Megan McGrath (14 points, nine rebounds) sank a pair of free throws with 3 minutes, 21 seconds on the clock to make it 39-34.
But No. 2 Hopedale outscored the Blue Devils, 9-1, the rest of the way to secure the title.
Jenna Weeden and Layla Huntley each scored 10 for Hopedale.
Carroll finished with a double-double, adding 12 rebounds to go with her game-high 23 points.
She was the difference for Hopedale against Drury's press, Blue Devils' coach Ian Downey said.
Drury generated just seven turnovers off that press, but Downey said he was happy with the way affected Hopedale's offense. Hopedale just had Carroll to turn to.
"You love to turn it over and get some wide open layups, sure, but that's not the sole purpose of the press," Downey said. "The press is also to make sure teams get into their offensive set late and then they're kind of rushing.
"I think the press, for the most part, did what it was supposed to do. It's just that Phoebe Carroll is a really good player, and we had trouble stopping her."
Drury also had trouble generating offense against Hopedale. The Blue Devils managed just seven field goals in the game -- five before the fourth quarter.
Early on, the Blue Devils had some success from the floor as McGrath hit a 3-pointer to give her team a 5-2 lead.
Later, Ashlyn Hayden scored two in the post to put the Blue Devils ahead, 9-6, midway through the first quarter.
But that was the last Drury field goal until its fifth possession of the third quarter.
"That's the reason why I stress defense so much," Downey said. "You're going to have quarters, you're going to have halves, you're going to have games where you just don't shoot the ball well. ... I mean, we missed two fast-break layups tonight.
"Ironically, we actually shot the ball well from the free throw line, which we've struggled with most of the year."
Hopedale forced six Drury turnovers in the second quarter while turning the ball over just twice and continuing a 16-3 run that started and ended with free throws from Layla Huntley.
Hopedale got to the line five times during the run, including a conventional three-point play from Phoebe Carroll midway through the second.
Drury's only second-quarter points came from Delaney Hayden, who broke an eight-minute scoring drought with a free throw with 3 minutes, 46 seconds left in the half, and Ashlyn Hayden, who made both her free throws with 1:29 left until half-time.
Hopedale led by as many as 17 in the third quarter when Carroll scored in the post to make it 33-16.
But the Blue Devils started to claw back into it, holding Hopedale without a field goal for the nearly nine minutes while whittling away at the deficit.
Ella Bond hit back-to-back 3-pointers midway through the fourth quarter to give Drury life and get the lead down to 37-32.
After Carroll scored in the post at the other end, McGrath got to the line with 3:21 on the clock and converted both her shots to again make it a five-point margin.
But Drury missed field goals on three of its next five possessions, managing just a single McGrath free throw with 1:06 on the clock, while Hopedale pulled away to again get the lead back to double digits.
McGrath, Eva Moser (four points, six rebounds) and Norah Wood graduate from a Drury team that finishes the season with a record of 20-6.
"I'm so proud of the team they're leaving behind," Downey said of the Class of '26. "I just told them in the locker room: You set a new standard for Drury high school basketball. It's no longer, 'Hey, let's make the tournament.' It's no longer, 'Hey, let's get to the finals in Western Mass.'
"The new standard is: Let's go win a state title. And that's what the seniors left behind. They put in four hard years at Drury High School, and they're leaving the program in a better place. That's the most important thing when you leave the program."
Photos from this game to come.