By Paul Vozzella
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
Dover-Sherborn girls’ basketball unfortunately fell short on Thursday night as they lost to Hingham in a 41-20 effort, moving them to 1-11 on the season.
The Raiders were in a tough situation from the get-go as they were dealing with a short roster, forcing them to call up players from junior varsity.
“With only seven healthy varsity players right now, [junior varsity’s] game got canceled and I asked if any of them wanted to come and play and be ready for the game and Rory Hartnett, she’s someone that got her number called and worked her butt off… so I’m very happy for her,” said first-year head coach Michael Patti. “It’s all about taking advantage of your opportunity when you get them, so she did great.”
Hartnett was one of the few positives to be taken out of the game as she scored her first varsity basket to go along with 3 rebounds in the fourth quarter. With several varsity players unable to suit up and the junior varsity team not being able to play because of a lack of players due to injuries and illness, Patti claimed that Hartnett and some of her underclassmen teammates will be able to be a part of the varsity roster for the time being.
Outside of Hartnett, Jazzy Hancock was the team’s top scorer. She finished with 10 points.
“The positive side to [having less players available] is the girls that haven’t had as big of roles have opportunities to step up and play well. I thought Jazzy Hancock took advantage of that tonight and played great.”
Unfortunately after trailing by three at the end of the first quarter, the Raiders found themselves down by fifteen points at halftime. By that point, Hingham scored more than the Raiders would throughout the whole game. Patti saw several areas his team can improve on.
“There were times that [Hingham] continued to push the ball and they hit a couple of shots,” he said. “We kind of got down on ourselves and lost our heads defensively… We need to look to push the ball more consistently in transition and get easy baskets because when we’re playing a half court game, at times it looks good, at other times it’s just not spaced well enough and we’re not making the right decisions.”
In the midst of a four game stretch in seven days, the Raiders immediately followed up this game with another against Dedham on Friday and Hopkinton on Tuesday. Their next game is versus Millis on Friday, January 31.