Alvirne girls basketball picks up win over Manchester Central
HUDSON – The Alvirne High School girls basketball team doesn’t have any one player who is going to lift the team all by herself.
No, against Manchester Central on Tuesday night, all of the Broncos took care of that.
Alvirne had three players score in double figures and used a zone defense in the second half to hold the Little Green to just 10 points on the way to a 49-31 win in Division I action.
Marissa Sweeney had a game-high 13 points for the Broncos (1-1), while Katie Bellomo and Jessica Baker each had 12 points and Amanda Wetmore chipped in eight.
“We don’t have any superstar kids,” Alvirne coach Scott Szuksta said. “We have a lot of kids that can play and not one of them thinks she has to take all the shots. Our strength is our defense and athleticism.”
Central (0-2) tested that defense early on, as Amanda Gaudreault found a way to the basket early and helped the Little Green take a 12-6 lead in the first quarter.
Gaudreault finished with a team-high 12 points, eight in the first half, but no one else had more than five, as Alvirne switched up its defense at halftime and kept the Little Green out of the paint.
“They have two long, lanky shooters who can kind of slash to the basket and I thought Jess Baker, Amanda Wetmore and Marissa Sweeney all kind of took turns guarding them,” Szuksta said. “We did a good job adjusting to them. In the first quarter, we had some trouble with help, but then we packed it in a little and did better with that.”
After Central went up by six in the first quarter, Alvirne went on a 13-2 run that spanned the end of the first and beginning of the second frame. The Broncos took their largest lead at 19-14 on a layup by Sweeney with 5:12 left in the half, but the Little Green was able to hang around and trailed 24-21 going into the break.
“In the first half, we played pretty well,” Central coach Mike Wenners said. “Having a team that’s pretty inexperienced, we’re going to have a lot of growing pains. I thought in the first half, we did a nice job, and in the second half, we started having some of those growing pains, just little simple things, not valuing the ball as much as we should, made things difficult.”
A jumper by Gaudreault to open the third quarter made it a one-point game, but Alvirne held Central without a point for nearly seven minutes during a 10-0 run.
“They did a nice job of taking (the inside) away and we didn’t adjust to it as well as I’d hoped we would,” Wenners said. “They’re a talented team and they did a nice job of taking away what we wanted to do. They have six or seven girls who are all pretty good and have played together and you can tell.”
A basket by Mikahya Kirby stopped the run momentarily, but the Broncos went on an 8-2 run to go up 42-27 and put the game out of reach.
