LOWELL, Mass. — With about a minute left in the third quarter, as the South Hadley girls basketball team was withstanding another Frontier run, junior Cara Dean shouted to her team between plays.
"We need to stay composed!" she enunciated.
South Hadley had come so close to its first state championship, losing in the MIAA Division 4 final each of the last two years to Cathedral. This time, the third-seeded Tigers were ready. They fended off repeated surges from top-seeded Frontier to triumph, 49-38, at Tsongas Center on Saturday.
"It definitely was a little bit of a struggle coming in and being like, we haven't had great success in the last two years here. But we've used that as motivation," Dean said. "If we want to win, we have to come out strong. If we want to do anything, we have to come out strong. So that definitely was really helpful."
That third quarter was one of several shots from Frontier (21-4). South Hadley (16-10) opened the game up 9-2, but the Redhawks and juniors Addie Harrington and Skyler Steele sparked a responding rally and took a 15-14 lead after the first frame.
The second quarter changed the game, as South Hadley held Frontier to just two points and went up 27-17 at halftime.
"We were talking about it walking in at halftime. We told the girls: That's exactly what we want to do," said South Hadley coach Paul Dubuc. "Then the third quarter was a little ragged, and I thought we picked it up at the end."
Frontier wasn't finished. After South Hadley went up 32-21, Steele (who finished with a team-high 19 points) scored seven straight, prompting Dean's message to her teammates. South Hadley responded and pushed the gap to 40-30, but Frontier again closed it down to 40-36.
Then Dean made her biggest play of the game. After missing an open 3, a South Hadley teammate grabbed a long offensive rebound and kicked it back out to her, where she confidently drilled the second open look.
In the final minutes, South Hadley closed the door with a sequence of pristine ball movement culminating in a Taylor Bullough corner 3-pointer, and then Dean pulled down a steal out of the air on the next defensive possession. She led the Tigers with 12 points, Bullough and Olivia Athas each contributed 10 and Kate Phillips added nine.
"I know what I'm doing, and if I overthink it (or) if I think twice about it, then stuff is not going to happen," Dean said. "So I just think that if we stay composed — everyone knows what they're doing. If you second-guess yourself, then obviously you're going to be in your head."
South Hadley played in a daunting league in Western Mass., facing Final 4 teams in higher divisions like Springfield Central, Pittsfield and Minnechaug. The Tigers started the season 4-10, but Dubuc kept his team thinking of the bigger picture in March. They won their last 12 straight games to close out the milestone season.
"When I interviewed for the job 16 years ago, they asked me why I wanted to do it. I said, 'I want to be coaching South Hadley girls when they do something," Dubuc said. "We've won two Western Mass. (championships), and we've been to the state finals three years in a row, and we finally got one."
