By Avonlea Cummings
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
The MedBall (18-1) girls traveled to Woburn Memorial High School on Saturday, February 17, to compete in the 35th annual Comcast tournament. MedBall went head to head against Central Catholic High (15-4) and battled throughout the afternoon, coming out on top in a narrow game 60-56. Captains Annie Stanton and Sadie Cumming tallied up nine points, Izzy Kittredge pocketed 12 points and had seven rebounds. Naya Annigeri gave Medfield 10 points of her own alongside 4 steals. Tess Baacke led the team with 14 points and 4 steals to wrap up the afternoon’s basketball game.
Medfield’s offense was quick to put pressure on Central Catholic’s defense. Aiming to get points on the board, the MedBall girls made snappy passed around the hoop finding holes in Central Catholic’s defense to shoot. Medfield successfully used their screens and passes to take control, leading the game 19-10 after the first quarter.
As the second quarter began, Medfield continued to work the ball around the court. Central Catholic began to pick up the intensity, starting to find some weaknesses in the MedBall defense. However, Medfield was quick to respond, racking up 22 more points at the half. Central Catholic would close the deficit but by the end of the first half still trailed the Warriors 41-27.
In the second half, Central Catholic picked up intensity on the court and after a hard fought third quarter, narrowed the Medfield lead to single digits. With five minutes left in the game, the Central Catholic run jumped them up to just eight points behind the Warriors. As the time dwindled on the scoreboard clock, it soon became just a one-point game. Medfield called a time-out to strategize as fans anxiously awaited what would happen next. On the court, the teams spread out with Medfield gaining control of the ball once more. Medfield fans erupted in cheers as Tess Baacke finished a tough drive to the hoop, securing MedBall a slot in Monday afternoon’s Championship game of the Comcast tournament.
Head coach Mark Nickerson spoke on how important it is for the MedBall girls to face new challenging teams in the Comcast tournament and shared that it is eye-opening to see new things the team can work on to improve. “Truthfully, this is exactly the kind of game we needed. We needed to be challenged like that, it was a physical game, and things weren’t really going our way in the second half. We had to battle and hold on to the lead. It was a great experience… that was a high-level division one basketball team with size, athleticism, and they were very aggressive. We don't see size like that during the year and it certainly exposed some areas of weakness for us and things we need to work on for the next week or two getting ready for the state tournament,” said Nickerson.
Senior captains Annie Stanton and Sadie Cumming shared insight on what brought the team together in the final minutes of the afternoon’s competition when the score was so close, and how playing teams like Central Catholic prepares them for playoffs. “I felt like it was really the bench’s energy that got us back into that game mentally, they were all cheering us on,” said Stanton. “It was really good for us to have a game like that, it will prepare us for the playoffs especially, so the energy and everything brought us together as a team and that’s how we got the win,” said Cumming.
