NEWBURYPORT — The Newburyport girls basketball team wanted to make amends.
Earlier in the week, the Clippers traveled out to play a longtime rival in North Reading, and were moments away from earning a statement road win. But leading by a point heading into the final possession, the Clippers couldn’t come up with one last stop in what ended up being a heartbreaking 39-38 loss.
So heading into Friday night’s game, the message was simple.
Nothing easy.
And with junior guard Brooke Lawton taking on the toughest defensive assignment, Newburyport made that message a reality by stifling a much-improved — but still young — Amesbury squad, 54-33. Lawton took on the responsibility of covering exciting Redhawk freshman Olivia McKay, who came into the game averaging 12.9 points per game but had her lowest scoring output of the season with only 5 points.
“This is a good way to respond after North Reading,” said Newburyport coach Karen Grutchfield. “I feel really good about their effort tonight.”
Defense. Effort. Height.
Thanks to Lawton, Maddie Hopwood and Caitlin Downey, the Newburyport (4-3) press didn’t necessarily cause a massive amount of turnovers, but it did speed up the Amesbury offense along with some aggressive on-ball defense. Then where the Clippers also shined was on the glass. Senior captain Laney Schwab in particular was relentless, and grabbed three offensive boards in the first quarter alone that led to her Clippers taking a 15-4 lead.
In total, Newburyport had over two dozen second-chance opportunites on the night.
Schwab finished with 5 points and 8 rebounds, and fellow senior captain Olivia Foley led the way with 14 points and 9 boards. Hopwood made a pair of driving layups in the second quarter, and two straight 3s from sophomore Ava Bailey made it a 33-14 Newburyport lead at halftime.
“It was great, we did a lot better tonight,” said Grutchfield. “We’ve been up-and-down, so it was good to get this in the system. We were tough mentally and we played strong. I mean, Amesbury can explode, they can score 60 on you. They’re good, you can see they’re good and they’ve improved so much from last year. But we really locked in on good, solid on-the-ball defense.”
But Amesbury (5-4) did show a couple sparks of life.
To open the third quarter, the Redhawks ran a great set play to get senior captain Ellie Marden a wide-open 3-pointer that she swished. Sophomores Ellison Talbot and Celia Tavares caused some turnovers, and forwards Sadie Bolth and freshmen Shelby Massey and Delaney Sargent battled hard defensively in the post despite giving up some height.
But Newburyport didn’t allow any significant runs.
It was a 42-23 game after three quarters, and the benches basically emptied the entire fourth. Both Marden and Bolth would lead the Redhawks with 10 points each.
“Obviously (Newburyport’s) height was an issue,” said Amesbury coach Scott Brown. “But, more importantly, we gave up around 30 second-chance opportunites. We didn’t do a good job boxing out, and then we hurt ourselves with missed foul shots. They’re a really good team, in a higher division than us, so we knew that it was going to be a tough game.”
Despite the result, though, Amesbury has plenty to be proud about.
We’re still only in early January, and the Redhawks have already matched their win total from a season ago. Bolth and Marden are the lone seniors on the roster, and the program reportedly has a dominant — and undefeated — JV team comprised of some promising 8th-graders that’ll join the roster a year from now.
But for the rest of this season, the Redhawks have what it takes to make it back to the Division 4 playoffs.
“We had to swing the ball and cut more tonight,” said Brown. “We were a little bit intimidated but we’re still a little young. We’ve got a really bright future, and at 5-4 we have a bunch of good games coming up. So we’re excited for the rest of the year.”
Newburyport 54, Amesbury 33
Amesbury (33): Ellison Talbot 1-1-3, Olivia McKay 2-1-5, Sadie Bolth 4-2-10, Celia Tavares 0-0-0, Ellie Marden 2-4-10, Shelby Massey 0-1-1, Delaney Sargent 2-0-4, Bailey Kimball 0-0-0, Cadence Olbrot 0-0-0, Violet Davis 0-0-0, Charlotte Costigan 0-0-0, Lydia Hunt. Totals 11-9-33
Newburyport (54): Laney Schwab 2-1-5, Olivia Foley 6-2-14, Brooke Lawton 2-0-4, Caitlin Downey 1-0-2, Maddie Hopwood 3-0-6, Ava Bailey 4-1-11, Clara Thompson 2-0-4, Christina Corneau 1-0-2, Morgan Rouba 1-2-4, Olivia Raimo 1-0-2, Piper Herndon 0-0-0, Alexandra Yavarow 0-0-0. Totals 23-6-54
3-pointers: N — Bailey 2; A — Marden 2
Amesbury (5-4): 5 9 9 10 — 33
Newburyport (4-3): 14 19 9 12 — 54