Pittsfield Girls' Fourth-Quarter Rally Falls Just Short
LOWELL, Mass. -- Celia Neilson recorded a double-double, and the Bishop Fenwick girls basketball team did just enough in the fourth quarter to hold off Pittsfield and secure a Division 3 State Championship with a 49-44 win on Sunday at UMass-Lowell's Tsongas Center.
Neilson scored 19 points and pulled down 14 rebounds as top-seeded Fenwick (20-5) denied the Generals (20-5) in their bid to win a first state crown in the school's five trips to the final.
Pittsfield fell behind by double digits in the second quarter and the third but kept coming back, making it a one-possession game with just more than a minute left to play.
"We could have folded," Pittsfield coach Kristy Conyers said. "But we've got a team of fighters. They came back and tied it at half-time. They kept playing.
"Second half, we were down by double digits. We came back again. But you've got to keep fighting. You can't slow down."
Caprese Conyers scored 15 points, and Asia Smith-Moody and Bre'Jai Ellerbee added eight and seven, respectively, for the Generals.
Smith-Moody figured prominently into both comebacks, hitting a lay-up in the closing seconds of the first half to tie the game, 23-23, and scoring five points in the fourth quarter to help Pittsfield outscore Fenwick, 15-8, down the stretch.
"She ran the court," Conyers said of Smith-Moody. "She wasn't afraid of contact. She went up for that layup to end the half, got knocked over -- no foul, but made the layup.
"And we kept trying to tell the girls: You can't expect [fouls] when going up. Some of them were getting frustrated. They weren't getting fouls called. But we said, 'You can't expect that. You've got to go up.' "
Pittsfield took its last lead of the game when Madison Stetz scored with an assist from Conyers in the middle of the third quarter to make it 29-28.
Fenwick then closed the quarter on a 13-0 run.
Neilson scored three times, and Abby Jenkins knocked down a 3-pointer in the rally, which sent Fenwick into the fourth quarter ahead, 41-29.
Pittsfield quickly got it back to a two-possession game to start the fourth.
Smith-Moody scored in transition and Conyers got a steal and a lay-up to make it 41-33. A Smith-Moody triple then made it a six-point game at 42-36 with 5 minutes, 15 seconds remaining.
Another steal and score in transition from Conyers got Pittsfield within five at 45-40 with about two minutes left.
Neilson, who went 5-for-6 at the line in the fourth quarter, hit a pair from the stripe with 1:37 left to put her team up by seven.
But after a steal from Kyana Summers (six points), Conyers scored in the post to make it a one-score game, 47-44.
Pittsfield's press then forced the last of the 30 turnovers it forced with 50.5 seconds left.
After a Fenwick foul gave Pittsfield a new 35-second clock with 39 seconds left, Coach Conyers called timeout with 22 ticks on the clock.
Pittsfield got a good look at the basket out of the timeout, but the shot was off the mark, and Caitlin Boyle (14 points, 12 rebounds) got the rebound.
Fenwick called timeout with 14.8 left, and Pittsfield was forced to foul with 8.1 on the clock. Neilson made both free throws to provide the final margin.
In the end, Pittsfield was forced to settle for a silver medal on the final day of the season. But the Generals, especially seniors Ellerbee, Stetz, Summers and Harolyn Castillo (five points, six rebounds) go out after winning 43 times in 51 games with one trip to the Final Four and one to the State Final over the last two seasons.
"Let's be honest, these past few years have been fun," Coach Conyers said. "I couldn't be any more proud. Even the ones we call the 'freshies,' that joined us this year. They bought in.
"I would go into any game with this group right here. They gave it their all."
Photos from this game to come.