SARANAC — The Nighthawks never quit.
From the offensive firepower of Reese Duprey to the defensive tenacity of Bella Berry. Then there’s ferocious rebounding of Natalia Gushlaw-Mirville to the ice in her veins of Maddie Corral. Peru showed they’re a team to be reckoned with in Section VII with their 50-48 victory over Saranac, Friday.
The thing to make note for the Nighthawks, the entire team has bought in and any player can contribute at any given moment.
“It’s been absolutely incredible,” Peru head coach Brittany Marshall said. “You know, it was a work in progress over the past couple of years, but we’re at a really good point now, and I think we have an exceptional team of girls that all understand that at any point it could be their night.
“And our people, who usually have a good night, also understand that it may not be that night, which I think is for me as a coach, puts me in a really great spot, because I have a team full of 10 kids, and all 10 kids can make a difference on that court at any time.”
The Spartans led by as many as 12 points in the second half before Peru began chipping away at the lead. Trailing by seven with four minutes to go, Corral took over scoring her seven points to finish the comeback.
“I wasn’t thinking about it at all,” she said. “I just shot it and it fell. It was different from the other shots from the beginning of the game, because I was definitely thinking about them going in.
“The last shot really, really helped us.”
That last shot came from just inside the three-point line as she sunk the basket to give the Nighthawks a two point lead with seconds remaining.
“I think the biggest thing you know that you see for me, you know, taking my coach hat off and watching from the sideline, is these girls have put so much trust in each other, in themselves and in the process,” Marshall said. “A lot of these girls have been on varsity for several years, so to get to the point where they are now to not panic when that happens, and to understand that basketball is a game of runs, and they’re going to get their run, but we’re also going to get ours stay calm in the moment and just crawl back.
“And that’s exactly what they did. They stayed calmed, they fought back and they never gave up.”
It helped with the defense of Berry, who mostly guarded Saranac’s Brenna Ducatte.
After the Nighthawks took the lead, Berry wouldn’t allow Ducatte to take a shot to tie or potentially win the game.
Ducatte still finished with a game high 27 points.
The duo weren’t always matched up and Marshall said that was for a multitude of reasons.
“I think it was a combination of one, give Bella a little bit of a break, not that she needs it,” Marshall said. “She’s a gamer, for sure, and she was going to bust through like she always does.
“But then the other thing, give Brenna a little bit of a different look, a little bit of a different style, different person guarding her, so she would maybe have to change up some things that she was starting to figure out with the same person guarding her.”
Duprey, who finished with a team high 23 points, said the team never doubted themselves for a minute, adding that similar to last weekend’s victory over Franklin Academy, it was a confidence builder to be Saranac.
“I think we never gave up,” she said. “We kept pushing each other, even if we were down by like, like you said, like seven or something.
“We never gave up. We stayed up in defense. We rebounded the heck out of the ball, which I think helped us a lot, and we hit a lot of key points.”
Spartan’s head coach Tim Newell praised the effort of both teams but said he knows what his team needs to work on.
“I knew coming into this game that it would be a very competitive contest,” he said. The league is very well balanced this year which makes for some entertaining games.
“We have to improve on our rebounding as we gave them many second chance opportunities. Both teams played well in spurts. We are scoring enough to win games but we need to improve with our defensive intensity.”
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Peru 50, Saranac 48
Peru (50)
Trumper 1-2-4, Marino 2-0-4, Berry B 2-0-6, Duprey 10-3-23, Berry V 0-0-0, Gushlaw-Mirville 0-2-2, Whitmarsh 2-0-4, Corral 3-0-7. TOTALS: 20-7-50
Saranac (48)
Pellerin 3-0-6, Ubl 0-0-0, Recore 0-0-0, Owen 0-0-0, Gagnier 2-0-5, Brown 5-0-10, Ducatte 11-1-27, Forgette 0-0-0. TOTALS: 21-1-48
Halftime- Peru, 28-26
3 point goals- Saranac (5): Gagnier, Ducatte 4; Peru (3): Berry B 2, Corral