PORTLAND — Yarmouth’s size and pressing defense overwhelmed Mountain Valley and earned the Clippers a 52-23 Class B South quarterfinal win Saturday at the Portland Expo.
No. 5 Yarmouth will now play the winner between No. 1 Freeport in the semifinals on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.
Katelyn D’Appolonia led the way for the Clippers (11-8) with 12 points, while Margaret McNeil added 10.
On the other end, the fourth-seeded Falcons (10-9) were paced by Kierstyn Lyons’ eight points. Rylee Sevigny and Autumn Freeman added seven points each.
The first quarter started with Sevigny drilling a 3-pointer and then hitting two free throws on the next possession to put the Falcons up 5-2 early. However, Mountain Valley didn’t have another streak like that in the first half and scored only six points in the final 14 minutes of the half.
Yarmouth coach David Cousins said that his team often has cold streaks, and he was happy that the players recovered quickly Saturday.
“We’ve played 29 minutes of basketball when the game is 32 minutes,” Cousins said. “We have a three-minute lull, and it’s usually offensively and we don’t hit shots, and that’s usually the difference. So, I am very proud of these guys.”
The Clippers made shots from all over the floor, whether it was under the basket, mid-range jumpers or 3-pointers from the corner. They also scored a lot of points in transition.
“I think on the defensive end of the floor we were magnificent tonight,” Cousins said. “They can shoot it, they can score, but we came to play on the defensive end and I think that got us a lot of transition points, which helped us offensively. Our defense led to some offense, which led to a huge, quick turnaround.”
D’Appolonia scored eight points in the first quarter and Maya Panozzo scored seven off the bench in the second to give Yarmouth a 30-11 lead at the half. The Clippers outscored the Falcons 14-1 in the second quarter.
Yarmouth’s size became a problem for Mountain Valley in the second half and it started to wear down the Falcons on both ends of the court, and especially on rebounds.
“On offense we ran our play that isolates the middle so we were trying to get it there,” McNeil said. “We just tried to play, and if the middle was open then we found it.”
Yarmouth’s lead grew to 42-17 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Mountain Valley coach Craig Milledge said it wasn’t Yarmouth’s size that affected the Falcon so much — they’ve dealt with being the smaller team all season. Instead, it was the Clippers’ defensive intensity that caught Mountain Valley off-guard.
“Height made a difference, but it wasn’t the difference maker,” Milledge said. “They got out in transition and we didn’t get back, that was huge as well. Their half-court defensive pressure was overwhelming to us. They’re long, they get in passing lanes … they made everything difficult for us. For a team like us to only score 23, that’s obviously pressure that we aren’t used to.”
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